


i know you are (but what am i)

by booktubelover7



Series: always a girl!pat au [1]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - High School, Anxiety, F/M, Female Patrick Kane, Major Character Injury, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Sam Gagner is The Best Friend a Girl Could Ask For, Sexism, The Kane Sisters Being Supportive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-20 23:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 57,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17032008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktubelover7/pseuds/booktubelover7
Summary: Pat throws up her arms in celebration after Toews makes a beautiful goal off of Pat’s assist. She crows in celebration as Toews slams into her, shouting in her ear.Pat’s playing, she’s playing, she’s playing. Not just that, but she’s winning too.When her line gets back to the bench, Pat leans over to speak into Toews’ ear. “Thank you,” she says. Her teammate just turns his head to look at her, a grin spreading across his face.Patricia Kane isn’t sure what to do. Her family has just moved from Buffalo, New York to Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Pat’s life is rocked by the change. A top-level high school hockey player, she must learn to navigate the ways of her new high school team, battling sexism and burgeoning feelings for her linemate.





	1. summer

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaah I can't believe I wrote this! This is not only my first work posted to AO3 but my first longfic EVER. It's been a long five months, but this has been so much fun to work on, and I'm so happy with the final product.
> 
>  
> 
> Now for my thank yous…
> 
> \- Thank you so much to [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70) for her amazing, flexible betaing and just general help with AO3. My fic is long and there are parts that I wrote when half asleep, but she did a great job letting me know what I did well and what I could improve on. Also, I never could’ve posted this fic without her screenshot tutorials about how to use AO3.
> 
> \- Thank you to the lovely sasha_annes, who made a fanmix and art for this fic. The mix feels like my fic the whole way through, and her art is just super awesome, so make sure you go give her love on her post. You can find a [link to the mix here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041925) or under "Works Inspired by This One" on my fic.
> 
> \- Thank you to A for dealing with my relentless rambling, whining, and for being a sounding board for ideas. Without you, I would have been miserable, sad, and the climax of my fic never would’ve been conceived. You were invaluable to this process.
> 
> \- L. Thank you for listening to me talk about my drama surrounding this fic despite not knowing what I was talking about. You supported me through panicked questions, reading through the first couple thousand words, and actually pushing me to sign up for the fest in the first place. You encouraged me to cut out scenes I didn’t need, and made me realize I could be done writing far before I was planning.
> 
> \- Thank you to everyone on the BBFE Discord. Y’all helped my word count grow with sprints and gave me guidance when I wasn’t sure how to proceed. You gave me a chance to talk about headcanons and scream about the Hawks. I’m so happy to have gotten to talk to y’all.
> 
> \- Of course, thank you to the BBFE mods for their amazing job organizing and making this fest happen. Y’all worked so hard, and I’m so impressed with the outcome.
> 
> \- And, of course, thank you to whoever reblogged the post about this fest so it popped up on my dash. Without you, I wouldn't have written this.
> 
>  
> 
> In this fic, a lot of real world mechanics have been tweaked to meet my own needs. I've totally disregarded the existence of both Juniors hockey and Manitoba's female high school hockey league. River Heights is the name of an actual high school in Winnipeg, but apart from the name, my school bares no intentional resemblance to the real one.
> 
>  
> 
> If you're here because you've googled yourself, please click off

Her family had just finished moving into their new house a couple of weeks prior, so Pat’s room isn’t fully unpacked yet. Sure, she’s got her furniture and bedding, and her computer set up on her desk. Her bedside lamp is plugged in with the same purple striped lampshade she’s had her entire life. The familiar patterns of Pat’s throw pillows, sticking out of a box in the corner of her room, are barely visible in the dim light. So much about this room is familiar, and yet so much isn’t at the same time.

Sure, the rug on the floor of Pat’s room is the one where she’s sat and walked and stretched out tired, sore muscles countless times. She’s given and received manicures and pedicures on that rug, and despite the different location, Pat still can see the faintly pink spot where lipstick was once smushed into the carpet.

Pat’s bedding still has that stain from when she brought spaghetti to bed (not a great idea, in hindsight) and spilled way more than she would ever admit to.

All of the items in Pat’s room are the same. They all still carry the memories of growing up and friends and hockey. The memories of ups and downs and in-betweens are still woven in the very cloth of the clothes in Pat’s closet and the grain of the wood of her desk.

But the room is different. The windows here are a little bit bigger, with slightly larger sills. The hardwood floors have scratches that weren’t caused by wayward hockey sticks or that one time Pat flipped her desk chair over. The walls are a slightly different color than the walls back in Buffalo, and the ceiling has a weird textured pattern on it. Because of the changed shape of the room, Pat’s bed is now facing towards the windows instead of away, and her desk is on the right side of her door instead of the left.

She’s miserable.

From her perch on top of the bed, Pat can see all the things wrong with her new room. Yes, Pat got the largest room out of all her sisters. She will no longer have to hear Erica’s mutterings through the walls, and her ceiling will no longer shake with the force of her family walking around the second floor of the house.

But this is all because Pat is in a new place, a new house. Now she is on the second floor instead of the first, and she is next to the bathroom instead of her sisters’ rooms. She would trade all of these new advantages for just being back in Buffalo, being near her grandfather and friends and her hockey team.

 

Pat can’t sleep.

She’s restless, both in her mind and body. She can’t stop rolling over, trying to get comfortable on her back, stomach, side. Pat rearranges the pillows countless times, hoping that this new configuration will finally be the one that lures her to sleep. Each time, however, she wishes in vain.

The worst part is that Pat knows she needs to get to sleep. She needs to get up at five the next morning to make it to practice. But that knowledge just makes her restlessness worse, because the thing that is keeping Pat awake is that very practice the next morning. She loves hockey, loves it more than maybe anything in the world but her family. And yet, the thought of going to the high school the next morning, stretching out on a foreign field with teammates she doesn’t know and coaches who she doesn’t trust makes her queasy.

Pat knows that this team has never had a girl play. She knows that none of her future teammates have probably ever even played on the same ice as a girl; she’s walking into a situation unprepared. Pat doesn’t know what might happen.

The possible situations bounce around her head, unrelentingly reminding her just what she could be getting herself into.

What if she doesn’t get to play? What if the boys never pass to her, never talk to her, don’t let her know the coaches’ hot buttons?

What if they treat her like she’s too fragile to handle herself, as if she’s made it playing with boys for as long as she has without skill and speed and agility?

But the coaching staff has infinitely more power than the boys to make this new place hell. Pat has heard stories about girls who want to play for their high school team but end up on the fourth line of the JV team because of an old-fashioned coaching staff. The girls who get cut despite being better than the vast majority of the boys, and the girls who just never get played.

The coaching staff could do any of these things; it’s no secret that River Heights High is located in a conservative area. Who knows what the coaches think of the capability of females, maybe they’re misogynistic douchebags. Perhaps she’ll never touch a puck for the rest of her hockey career.

At this thought, Pat violently forces herself to switch to something else. She takes deep breaths, just like her grandpa taught her to do, and thinks of the feeling of cutting across fresh outdoor ice.

When she finally drifts off into an uneasy sleep, Pat is thinking of ice and skates and the sound of the puck hitting off the boards.

 

 

Pat groans and rolls over in bed at the shrill sound of her alarm. Her restlessness the night before has definitely caught up to her, and this early waking hour is the cherry on top of her unease about practice.

If it weren’t for Pat’s all-encompassing love for her sport, she might’ve turned off her alarm, rolled over in bed, and gone back to sleep, effectively calling off the whole endeavor. But she loves hockey, and she isn’t going to let something silly like waking up at five in the morning discourage her.

By the time Pat is dressed and out the door, protein shake in hand, she is awake enough to start to get nervous all over again. Her dad is driving her to practice, and the two are quiet during the entire ride to the high school. Pat’s dad knows she isn’t happy about this move, about switching teams. He knows she’s nervous. He knows better than to try to interrupt her thoughts right now.

Pat’s dad pulls up in the parking lot of the school. There’s a handful of other cars parked, and just one other vehicle dropping someone off. Pat wanted to be early to practice, she wants to show the coaches that she isn’t just messing around. She wants to show them, from right off the bat, that she is a serious player, someone who they can trust to get the job done.

“I love you, Pat,” Pat’s dad looks over at her from the driver’s seat. “I believe in you.” He looks back over, and Pat sucks down the last of her shake.

After a final deep breath, Pat finally steps out of the car, grabbing her water and duffel bag. She sets off towards the small group of people standing by the school logo in the track.

As she walks over, she can see heads turn towards her, first only one set of eyes, and then, after a moment, a couple more. Pat straightens up a bit, attempts to appear less nervous than she actually is. Hopefully, none of the people can tell just how much she wants to run back to her dad’s car and demand he take her home.

But she is strong. She is Patricia Kane, number one female u18 player in the state of New York, despite her age. Number five high school player in New York, despite her gender. Patricia Kane wouldn’t let something like some potential douchebags get in her way.

Pat breathes in and lets it out slowly, in a last-ditch attempt to calm down, just before she reaches the group. Now that she’s closer, she can tell that two of the people standing there are older, coaches. One has a graying beard and a River Heights Hockey baseball cap. He is heavy, obviously not in hockey shape despite his status as a coach, and average height. The other is younger, probably fresh out of some sort of athletic program at a college, not good enough to play hockey professionally, probably not even good enough to play more than club in college. But here he is, a tall, fit-looking blonde dude with a floppy haircut and a large Tim Horton’s to go cup in hand.

Pat would go up to them now, shake their hands and ensure that they know who she is, that they won’t just ignore her. But she has a feeling that doing that wouldn’t do her much good right now; they look deep in conversation. She doesn’t want to appear needy or annoying. Pat isn’t always self-aware of her behavior, but she knows she will have to be on this new team.

The four others, standing several yards away from the coaches, are obviously new teammates. All four are huge, each probably nearing six feet tall and 180 pounds. Pat is suddenly very conscious of how short she is, how small compared to these four giants. Of course, the boys on her old team were bigger than her, but not by this much.

‘There’s no way you’re getting a spot on the team with these four around,’ a nasty voice in the back of Pat’s head whispers to her. ‘How could you compete with them? Even if you were a boy, even if you did belong here.’ She physically shakes the thoughts away, because now that she’s here, she is unwilling to let her fears and doubts get the best of her.

One of the four, the shortest of the bunch, smirks at her. He’s classically handsome for a high schooler and has slightly shaggy brown hair that he obviously puts a lot of work into. He’s got the kind of facial expression on his very nice face that says he knows exactly how attractive he is.

“You must be the infamous Patricia Kane,” he practically drawls at her, drawing out her name. Pat is sure he is doing it just to be obnoxious. “I’m Patrick Sharp. Very nice to meet you.”

The sheer sleaze present in the boy’s voice is enough to make Pat nearly cringe.

But she has to be polite. She has to make her place.

“Hi, Patrick, nice to meet you,” After directing a polite smile towards Sharp, Pat turns her attention to the three others, inquiry plain on her face.

The tallest boy speaks next. “Brent Seabrook,” he grunts out, obviously more impacted by the time than Sharp. Seabrook jabs his thumb at the boy who is all but hanging on him with his eyes closed and an expression of pain on his face. “And Duncan Keith.”

Keith grunts a small greeting.

Seabrook really is huge, with a mop of hair housing a disgusting amount of hair gel and a hairline reminiscent of the letter M. Keith has longer hair, grown out down to his chin. It’s greasy in the way that belies someone who doesn’t wash it on purpose, rather than someone who just is too lazy to shampoo his hair. His features are softer, especially compared to Seabrook's sharp nose and hairline. If Pat were to guess, he and his buddy are defensive partners. No other combination of two hockey players would be that huge and handsy.

Finally, Pat turns her attention to the last of the four to introduce himself.

This one looks angry to see her. Pat knew that the boys on her new team probably wouldn’t be happy about their new teammate, but she thought that maybe they would hide it a little better. But no. This boy looks like he would rather be doing anything else in the entire world than meeting his new female teammate.

Pat can’t even summon the will to be offended though, or to dislike this boy. She isn’t even that surprised.

The other thing is, this cranky boy is handsome. Ok, maybe not in the most traditional sense, not like Sharp, but still. Perhaps it’s his sharp jawline, or maybe…. Well, it’s probably the jaw.

After a moment of silence, Sharp elbows the cranky boy in the side.

“Jonathan Toews,” he deadpans. “Welcome to the team.”

He couldn’t sound less welcoming.

 

 

As more and more of the team arrives for practice, Pat is able to drift to edges of the group, staying relatively ignored by the boys. Some of them give her cursory glances up and down, slightly questioning looks on their faces. But the boys always get distracted right away, catching up with teammates and talking about the upcoming school year being far more interesting than the mystery girl lurking on the edges of their group.

Pat hopes this is the way it’ll stay. She hopes that instead of actively pushing her out, they’ll just ignore her in favor of more exciting and mainstream things.

Finally, after another ten minutes of standing around and waiting for the practice to start, the heavier coach with the baseball cap speaks up.

“Eh, everyone! Quiet!” The chattering quickly peters out as everyone directs their attention to the coach.

“Welcome to the first morning dryland practice of the summer. If you don’t know our names, or if you’ve simply forgotten,” this earns the man a smattering of laughs, “I’m head Coach Martin, and this -” Martin gestures at the tall blonde man. “- is Coach Campbell. Save questions for after practice, find contact info on the team site, etcetera etcetera.”

Pat just wants the workout to start, everything is easier when she’s sweaty and tired and her muscles are screaming at her.

“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get started. I’m trusting you boys to take care of introductions later in the locker room.”

That makes Pat’s head snap up. Obviously, she won’t be changing with the boys, and she knows that will probably affect her place on the team. She isn’t stupid; Pat knows how much the locker room affects the flow and teamwork of a group. But she was at least expecting that the coaches to encourage introductions outside of the locker room. But no.

Fuck.

Pat’s not even going to be able to control how these boys meet her.

She takes another deep breath. She’s fine. She can control just how much she kicks these boys asses. Pat can prove she belongs here.

 

 

Pat sucks down the last of her water as she finishes up her stretches. The practice was good, it was good. Her heart was beating, and she was fighting for breath. She finally was able to banish the anxiety of joining a new team from her mind, because the only thoughts that were important were the ones surrounding the workout.

It was amazing. Sure, Pat loves being on the ice, she loves the feeling of skating and passing and scoring. But she’s an athlete: she likes to move and work and get lost in the repetition of exercise and movement. She loves the feeling of her body struggling to keep up with her demands, and she loves how it feels after a workout when she is calm and worn and fresh.

But now she needs to resurface. During practice, the coaches were working everyone too hard for any focus to be on Pat. But now, now that everyone is cooled down and stretching, now that everyone has caught their breath and started chatting with friends, she’s going to have to deal with her new teammates.

Pat snaps to attention, nerves skyrocketing as one of the boys walks over, probably a freshman. She sucks in a deep breath, tries to keep her image under control.

“Who are you?” he asks, a perfect example of teenage boy tact.

“Pat Kane, sophomore,” Pat answers directly, unsure whether the boy actually wants to know or whether one of his friends sent him over to ask. After a quick glance around the rest of the team, she concludes this was not planned. Everyone looks surprised as if there was an unspoken agreement not to talk to the girl who was kicking their asses.

“What are you doing here?” the boy asks.

“What do you mean?” Pat is slightly confused by his question; by now she would’ve thought Sharp and his friends would’ve told everyone that the girl is a new addition to their team.

“Like, why did you work out with us today?” the freshman asks. A quick look over at the coaches tells Pat that they too are catching this and that they are starting to regret not doing introductions at the beginning of the workout.

“I’m joining the team.” Pat looks up at the surprised look on this freshman’s face. “And who are you?” Pat tries to switch the subject, divert the attention away from her and onto the other player.

“Um… Brandon. But most people from my club team just called me Saader, ’cause, ya know, my last name is Saad. So… I guess you can pick which one you want to call me.” Saad looks immediately embarrassed and kind of like he would like to throw himself off a cliff right now.

Pat smiles at him. Apparently, this kid hasn’t yet perfected the skill of talking to a girl and not getting flustered, and while it’s adorable, if none of her younger teammates can talk to her it’ll be challenging to play on the same team as them.

“But, like, Pat. How did you get on the team? You’re…” Saad trails off, either not wanting to make a comment about Pat’s gender, or realizing it isn’t necessary.

“Short?” she replies, because fuck, it’s true. Her measly five foot five is just another disadvantage she has in hockey on top of her gender, and it pisses her off sometimes.

Saad shifts uncomfortably, clearly not quite sure how to handle Pat’s avoidance tactics, but still presses for an answer to the question he didn’t have the balls to ask.

“No, I mean, like…” he trails off again before visibly summoning up his courage to finally just ask the question. “You’re a girl. How are you playing on the boys' team?” He rushed out this final part, obviously not wanting to embarrass himself even further.

Now that Pat thinks about it, she didn’t really think about how Sharp and his friends knew who she was. Did the coaches only tell them? During practice, they did look to be the most capable, both physically and when interacting with fellow teammates. If Pat were to guess, she would say that they are the core of the varsity team, maybe even one of them lined up to be captain this year?

However they knew, it apparently wasn’t widespread knowledge. So now she’s going to have to answer questions.

“Anyone’s allowed to play on the team. Didn’t you ever notice that the hockey team isn’t gender-specified?” Pat replies, preparing herself for any sort of different responses.

All she gets is a simple, “Oh,” from Saad, which… isn’t what she would have expected. Pat was anticipating an argument, some sort of exclamation about how she must be making things up. Definitely not quick and straightforward acceptance of what she had said.

“Listen, boys,” and, finally, the coaches are getting involved. “Patricia is going to be playing with us this season. Despite Patricia’s role as the first ever girl on the River Heights hockey team, we expect you all to treat her like a teammate” While saying all of this, Coach Martin sounds vaguely annoyed, as if he is dealing with something far below his pay grade. As if Pat is an annoyance. The tone immediately puts her on edge.

If the head coach can’t even give her the respect she deserves, how can anyone expect that her teammates will?

Toews speaks up, looking even scowl-ier than before. “She’s not going to get any advantages in the tryout process, right?” he asks.

Pat bristles, her whole body suddenly alert. Really? This asshole thinks it’s okay to just ask whether she’s going to get an advantage because of her gender? She’s gonna show him a piece of her mind, that fucker.

Pat doesn’t get angry often, but now is definitely one of those times. She wants to yell at this idiot, scream in his face about what an absolute douche he is. Not only is Toews incapable of hiding at least some of his annoyance, but he is completely insensitive and probably sexist to boot.

When she looks over at where Toews is sitting, she can see that Sharp looks a little tense, as if he at least knows how shitty his friend just was.

“No, Tazer, Patricia will have to go through the same tryouts the rest of you went through your first years,” Coach Martin says to Toews, and her teammate’s scowl becomes slightly less intense.

After that, the team goes back to chatting and laughing with each other, though it is a little more subdued than before. Pat can see glances shooting her way, and obvious whispering following soon after.

Thankfully, after only a couple more minutes of stretching and cool down, the coaches release the team to the locker rooms.

At least in her empty locker room, she won’t have to be around the whispers and looks of the boys. But she also won’t know what the boys are saying about her. Pat isn’t naive enough to think that she won’t be a main topic of conversation. That would just be stupid.

 

 

As Pat showers and changes, she thinks about the annoyed, almost dismissive, way that the coaches had treated her being on the team.

Pat has had coaches like this before. Since she was young, ten or eleven maybe, it has been evident that playing on girl’s teams wasn’t going to give her the challenge or coaching she needed to be good. It was apparent she was going to be good, better than most of the boys even, so Pat’s dad fought for her to play with the boys. He went into countless offices to argue for her to be on the boy’s teams, argued with coaches and organization leaders about letting Pat onto a team that fit her needs as a player.

The thing was, there were only so many hockey teams in the Buffalo metro area, only so many administrators and coaches for her dad to talk to about getting his daughter on a boy’s team.

Pat tried a couple before she found the team that she stuck with. Pat never asked to be pulled off of a team; she tried to hide the bad experiences from her family. But every time, they would find out about the coach who didn’t coach her, or the boys who picked on her, or the parents who gave her nasty, accusatory looks after practice. And every time, Pat’s family would pull her out and try again.

Hopefully this year, this team, this place isn’t the same.

As Pat gets ready, she can hear the boys filing out of their locker room, noisily yelling over each other about the things that teenage boys talk about.

“Don’t be a fuckin’ bitch, just ask her out!”

“Oh, fuck man. Did she show you her titties?”

“What a fuckin’ pussy bro, I’m fuckin’ telling you.”

“Aw man, he’s a fuckin’ faggot.”

“Damn bro, sounds like an epic party. Can’t fuckin’ wait.”

None of the dialog is unfamiliar to Pat; she’s been playing on teams with boys for years. In fact, despite the offensive nature of male conversation, she’s even gotten to the point with past teams where she could join in, and it felt seamless and natural. It felt like she was one of the boys.

Now though… Now the boys may not want her to be one of them. In her last club team and even her high school team, the very culture of the organizations made it so she was naturally included. But this team, this coaching staff, feels very different from past positive experiences. Maybe Pat is letting her anxiety get the best of her instead of trying her best to make the most of her new situation.

Pat finishes getting dressed and packs up all her things into her duffel bag, hefts it over her shoulder, and makes her way out of the building. As she steps out to the front of the building, she can see her dad, parked and waiting for her. It looks like most of the boys have left, though there is still a handful sitting on the front steps.

As Pat walks over to her dad’s car, she is interrupted by a shout from behind her.

“Eh! Kane!”

Pat looks over to the voice, and sees Sharp walking briskly towards her and trying to wave her down. She stops walking and waits for the older boy to reach her.

“Sorry about Tazer, he’s a fuckin’ insensitive asshole sometimes, but he means well,” At Pat’s inquisitive look, Sharp elaborates “Oh, yeah, sorry. We call Toews Tazer, cause his eyes sometimes look like fuckin’ lasers.”

This pulls a laugh out of Pat, one she didn’t expect at all. “Thanks, Sharp, but you don’t need to apologize for your teammate,” she tells him, completely genuinely.

Sharp wrinkles his eyebrows, almost looking concerned. “Hey, dude, if we’re gonna be teammates, you should call me Sharpy. It’s what everyone else fuckin’ calls me, anyway.” Pat opens her mouth to deflect, tell Sharp it’s ok, really, but he just keeps talking. “Do you have a nickname? I mean, Kaner probably would work, with your last name and everything, but it isn’t very fuckin’ creative, is it? Hmm, I’ll have to think about it.” Sharp no longer looks concerned, but thoughtful.

Pat rolls back and forth on the balls of her feet, impatient to get in her dad’s car and go home. She looks over at her father, who looks anxious to get out of the parking lot. “Um, I kind of have to go,” she tells Sharp, a hint of nervousness creeping into her voice. She doesn’t want to interrupt an important member of the team.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I’ll let you go. Have a good rest of your day!” Sharp tells her, already heading off in a different direction.

Pat takes a deep breath, glad she hasn’t upset her teammate. Finally, she walks over and climbs in her dad’s car.

“How was practice?” he asks.

She doesn’t even know how to start.

 

It’s been a week since that first morning practice. Pat’s had five more dryland practices and no on-ice time.

Pat can’t wait to get on the ice. She can’t wait to kick the boys' asses, because she knows she will. Already, just with dryland, she has been one of the top performers. Sure, she doesn’t have the height or weight or muscle mass advantages that a lot of the other high performers have, but she is still an elite hockey player. She can still compete.

Practices have been going about the way she had expected. Most of the boys have been ignoring her, except for Saad and Sharp. For some reason, those two sidle up next to her and try to start conversations. Saad is a bumbling mess, nervous about being a freshman and Pat being a girl.

But Sharp treats her like she’s seen him treating Keith or Seabrook or the dude with the accent (Hossa, maybe?). He’ll talk to her about the draft and NHL awards. He talks about a buddy of his who actually got drafted, but how he’s going to college in the US before he goes pro. He calls her Kaner but says he’s coming up with a better nickname. He makes a face he probably thinks is subtle every time Pat calls him Sharp instead Sharpy.

It’s strange. It’s like being on one of her last two teams, where everyone actually accepted that there would be a girl on the ice with them. Except it’s only Saad and Sharp treating her that way.

Toews still looks at Pat like she’s a cockroach, someone annoying and vaguely disgusting. Someone that needs to be dealt with, an issue. Pat is starting to hate the boy.

The coaches will sometimes yell out to her if she’s doing something not quite right, and they’ll sometimes give her a nod at the start of practice or if she does something well. But she’ll often hear shouts of “Nice going, Keith!” or “Great time on that run, Ladd” or even a “Good effort” to a freshman.

It’s frustrating because Pat never gets those shouts of praise; she never gets any sort of encouragement from her coaches or teammates.

But right now, that doesn’t matter so much. Because tonight, Pat and Erica are going to have a girls’ night.

Pat has always been closer to Erica than anyone else in his family. Sometimes extended family who they don’t see often will say Pat and Erica act more like twins than just sisters, and it’s true, they do. Maybe they don’t have the same crazy telepathy that twins are supposed to have, but they can read each other better than anyone else. Pat always tells Erica things before anyone else, and vise versa. They know all each other’s secrets, and Pat doesn’t know what she would do without her sister.

So they’re having a girls’ night. Tonight, Pat and Erica are going to watch romcoms and paint each other’s nails and do face masks and eat ice cream and gossip.

It’s going to be awesome.

As Erica pulls out the nail polish and face masks, Pat grabs a carton of ice cream and pulls out the movies they’re going to watch: 10 Things I Hate About You, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Clueless. Pat doubts that they’ll make it through all three, but it’s always good to be prepared.

When Erica finally comes down the stairs to the living room, beauty products in hand, Pat has everything set up.

They put on their face masks, pop in the DVD for the first movie, and settle on the floor in front of the T.V. As per tradition, the first movie is for enjoyment only; no nail painting or gossip. The only thing allowed is ice cream and the occasional comment about the plot.

By the time the first movie has ended, the sun has set, leaving the sisters with only the T.V. as a light source. Erica stands up to switch on a light and pop in the next movie. As she settles down again next to Pat, a bottle of navy blue nail polish in hand (River Heights blue, Pat notes), she has a gentle look on her face. The look that means she wants to have a conversation that Pat will not like.

“How’s practice really been, Pat?” Erica looks knowing, like she is precisely aware of how practice is going, but she wants Pat to talk about it anyways.

“Erica…” Pat whines, hoping that if she’s annoying enough her sister will drop the conversation and they can just discuss heartthrobs and music and the latest dumb book they’ve both been reading.

It doesn’t work, obviously. Because Erica is awful.

“Pat, you need to tell me what’s been going on at practice. I know you haven’t been quite right this past week. I’m not blind. I just don’t know the details. Will you please talk to me?”

Pat hates it when Erica gets that tone, the one that’s all about being reasonable and sharing feelings and caring and being good sisters. That tone always gets the whole story out of Pat, and in this situation, it is no different.

“Ugh, fine. Just stop giving me those puppy eyes, you’re seriously getting too old for that.” Pat whines at her sister, fed up already with the concerned looks and “Oh, Pat”s she’s going to receive.

“Ok, so. We’ve moved to a pretty conservative area, right?” Erica nods. “Well, the team seems to be holding to that attitude pretty well, especially the coaches.”

Erica opens her mouth as if she’s going to ask a question or add something in, but Pat cuts her off even before she can get a single noise out. “Please, Erica, just wait until I’m done. Just let me tell you what’s going on.

“Basically all of the boys are ignoring me, just pretending like I don’t exist. The coaches only talk to me when I’m doing something wrong, but they praise the boys consistently. A handful of the boys look at me like I’m the scum of the earth, like I’m a fucking problem to be solved.

“The coaches, when they do speak to me, only ever sound like I’m the biggest fucking inconvenience. How are the boys supposed to know how to treat me any differently when the coaches can’t find it within themselves to be tolerant of a girl on the team?

“There’s only two boys who will speak to me, and when they do their friends look at them like they’re crazy. Maybe they are. Maybe if the roles were reversed, and I was the boy with the newbie girl on the team, I wouldn’t want anything to do with her either. Maybe it all makes sense, and maybe we’re all just crazy for thinking this new place would accept me on their perfect title-winning, testosterone-filled hockey team.

“Are we going fucking crazy, Erica? Are our expectations totally fucked up?”

Pat’s breathing has started to seize up, each in and out becoming harder and harder. It feels like her throat is closing up, becoming smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter. The sound of the movie intro screen has faded into the background, being drowned out by the noise of Pat’s desperate attempts to catch her breath.

Pat didn’t even realize she thought most of what she told her sister until the words were flowing out of her mouth, but by then it was too late. She couldn’t formulate and prune her thoughts until they were worthy of being shared; they just flowed right out.

“Hey, hey, Pat.” Erica’s voice floats through Pat’s panicked haze, pulling her out just enough to focus on her sister’s face. “Pat, breathe, just like Grandpa taught you. In, hold, and out. It’s okay, Pat.” Erica slowly strokes Pat’s back and softly encourages her to breathe in and out and in again.

Finally, after what felt like a century but was probably only a couple of minutes, Pat’s breathing evens out. Her throat no longer feels like it’s constricting her breaths, and the haze of anxiety and panic that had been choking up Pat’s mind has dissipated.

She can think again.

“You’re not crazy, Pat,” her sister whispers into the silence between them. “None of us are crazy for wanting you to be able to play somewhere good for both your hockey and your mental health. It’s not too much to ask for you to be happy, just remember that.”

Pat pulls her sister against her side, wrapping an arm around the younger girl’s midsection to keep her close. Pat feels lighter now that she’s shared her thoughts with Erica, which doesn’t surprise her really. Usually, if one of them is struggling with something, talking to the other sister helps sort things out internally.

“Maybe you should talk to those two boys who’ve spoken to you. Maybe showing that you can get along and bend to the team some will help out with the rest of them.”

What Erica’s suggested actually makes a lot of sense. And the next practice Pat goes to will be an on-ice practice, so she’ll probably be in a better mood than she usually is at dryland. Maybe if Pat shows the boys that she can get along, they’ll be more likely to treat her with the respect she is craving.

And maybe then the coaches will catch on as well.

 

 

The Monday after Erica and Pat’s big talk about the team, Pat shows up to the River Heights rink ready to go. Sure, it’s five fifteen in the morning, but who cares about that? Pat’s going to skate.

The ride over, Pat is bouncing in her seat, unable to control her excitement. Her father chuckles at her, fondly saying, “Wow, Patty, haven’t seen you this excited since we got those seats next to the glass for that playoffs game in Buffalo.”

Pat just laughs, because yeah. She probably hasn’t been this excited since then. But this is her first on-ice workout in months. Nothing quite compares to the feeling of skating, the feeling of cutting across the length of the rink in just a handful of seconds, the feeling of the artificial cold against her cheeks. The feeling of a puck on her tape, the feeling of deking around a defenseman twice her size with hardly a second thought.

These boys aren’t going to know what hit them.

When her dad pulls up outside of the rink, Pat wastes no time in jumping out of the car and lugging her bag out of the trunk of the car. With a final jounty wave to her father, Pat gets as close as she can to running with her hockey bag in tow as she gets into the building.

After being directed to the women’s locker room by an exhausted looking boy who looks like he’s regretting the decision to come into work today, Pat puts down her bag and pulls out her MP3 player. After a quick search, Pat finds a speaker set up with a jack that works with her player, and she turns on her favorite playlist full of pop music that she ripped off of CDs from the library.

All the way through her pre-ice routine, Pat is bopping along to the music. She feels light for what feels like the first time since she learned about the move to Winnipeg. The combination of what Erica told her during the girls’ night and Pat’s own excitement about getting on the ice has Pat on cloud nine.

Finally, Pat is pulling on the practice jersey that she received at the end of the last practice. She had to get an extra small, which would have been embarrassing if it weren’t for all the freshies who had to ask for the size as well. And if it weren’t for the fact that the coaches had only purchased men’s jerseys.

Pat made sure she was a good twenty minutes early for practice. She knows no one will yell at her for getting on the ice early; not only is it too early in the morning for anyone to care, but often rink employees will trust the hockey players to not damage themselves on the ice.

However, as Pat steps out into the rink, she sees that she isn’t alone. Already, there is another person wearing full gear, carrying a stick, and donning a River Heights jersey lazily circling the ice. The sound of a puck bouncing off the boards and a stick follows the figure.

And this boy is good. He’s a smooth skater, and his passes to himself off the boards are crisp and clean. It’s obvious that his puck handling is good, if not as good as Pat’s own. Once he snaps a clean back hand into the top of the net, Pat’s mind is made. This kid is good, like really, really good.

Maybe even good enough to play with her.

As she steps out onto the ice, she calls out to her mystery teammate. “Nice shot there!”

The boy turns around and… Okay. Pat shouldn’t be surprised. Toews was strong in dryland, obviously one of the top athletes on the team. But something about this douchebag being as good as he is rubs her the wrong way. Now it’s almost as if Toews has a reason to act so aloof and distant and cold, which is dumb. No one should act that way, and it makes it all the worse that Toews is sexist.

But Pat promised Erica that she would make an effort. Pat fucking promised her sister that she would be social and open with the boys this week. So that’s what she’ll do.

Pat skates over to Toews and makes lazy circles around him. “We’ve got, what, twenty minutes before we’re supposed to be on the ice. Ready for a little game of keep away, Toews? I bet you can’t beat me.”

At that, Pat swoops in and slaps the puck away from Toews, using his unsuspecting nature against him.

She skates away, cackling. Pat can hear Toews sputtering behind her, and she wishes she could see the face he’s making. It’s probably disgruntled and surprised and amazing.

With a few strong strokes, Pat is several feet away from her teammate, but only a fraction of a second later, she can hear the boy skating after her. Of course, he isn’t playfully chirping her like her past teammates would’ve, but at least he’s willing to compete.

Maybe people would expect that her size and gender would make it hard for her to compete with a player like Toews, who Pat would guess is nearing six feet if he hasn’t hit it already. But if there’s one she learned last year when playing for her high school in Buffalo, it was how to duck underneath players who were four plus inches taller than her. She’s always been fast, always had crazy soft hands, but playing with high schoolers honed those skills.

Because of Pat’s skills, she ends up with the puck as often as she does without it. This only seems to frustrate Toews more, because he becomes more and more physical, pushing her around more and more. It makes Pat want to giggle, because she would bet her left skate that Toews never expected to be challenged by a girl in a game of keep away.

After about fifteen minutes, the rest of the team begins filing onto the ice. Both Pat and Toews are breathing hard.

“We should stop now,” Toews says gruffly, continuing, “Don’t want to be too worn out before practice.”

At that, Toews skates away to his little group of friends, leaving her behind him. Pat tried, ok, she fucking tried. She tried to go along and be a good teammate and be like the other boys would.

But Toews is still a fucking douche. Pat is starting to lose the hope that Erica and the ice had given her. But before she can even think about it too much more, Saad skates over to start rambling at her the same way he’d done the past week.

Today, though, Pat actually calls him by the nickname he had mentioned that first practice. When he stops next to her and she says, “Hey Saader, what’s up?” he looks like he’s gone to heaven. After that, Pat actually attempts to make conversation with the kid. Because they’re both new to River Heights this year, they can both discuss the things they’ve heard and the things they’re wondering about. Embarrassingly enough, even only in a five minute conversation, it is obvious that Saad knows far more about River Heights than Pat does, which isn’t even surprising, but still.

By the time Coach calls the team over to start practice, Saad has started to relax a little. He’s stopped stuttering as much, and the nervous rambling has decreased some. It’s good progress, Pat thinks. Erica would be proud.

But practice is about to start, and so it’s not time for thinking about the team dynamics anymore. Now it’s time for thinking about hockey and skating and showing this team what kind of player Pat Kane is.

 

After Coach Martin dismisses the team, everyone files off the ice. Pat can feel the sweat pooled uncomfortably underneath her helmet, but she can’t figure out a way to pull it off to wipe her forehead when she’s still wearing her gloves.

As everyone makes their way to their respective locker room, a boy Pat is pretty sure is her age falls into step beside her.

“You looked really fuckin’ good out there,” he tells her. Pat has seen this boy hanging around one of the juniors a lot, but she doesn’t know either of their names. If she had to guess, she would say they were both on the varsity team last year; both boys looked like they were in the top half of the group.

“Oh, fuck, I’m Shawsy, by the way,” he smiles at her sheepishly, as if embarrassed that he didn’t introduce himself.

Pat doesn’t miss how Shawsy doesn’t give her his actual name, thereby forcing her to use his nickname. She wonders if Sharpy had told him to do that, or maybe Saad had mentioned something. Either way, it’s probably for the best if Pat is going to follow Erica’s advice.

“I probably don’t have to introduce myself, huh,” Pat asks rhetorically. She knows everyone else knows her name, even if she doesn’t know theirs.

Pat gets a full on grin at this, and her teammate responds “No, not really. Last I heard, though, Sharpy’s been calling you Kaner. That work for you?”

She nods, a small smile beginning to form. This kid is charming, and Pat can see herself liking him.

“You looked good, too, by the way,” she says, finally responding to the compliment that sparked this whole conversation. They’ve stopped in the hallway of the rink, empty now that their teammates are in the locker room. “You on varsity last year?”

“Thanks, dude. Yeah, I was on varsity. It’s super fun, but it takes a fuck ton of time and work. I bet you know that already though. You play varsity at your old high school?” Shawsy asks.

“Yeah, actually, I did. Hopefully the coaches will let me on varsity this year,” Pat responds, hoping the boy can’t tell how uncertain she is about her chances at varsity.

“Fuck, dude, if they don’t put you on varsity, that’d be a fuckin’ crime. You’re super good.” Shawsy sounds enthusiastic, like he really means it. It’s surprising for Pat; she didn’t think the varsity boys would be into a girl stealing the limelight.

“Thanks,” Pat smiles at the taller boy, and continues, “Now, this was a great conversation, but I need to take a fucking shower.”

Shawsy just laughs. “Yeah, I’m probably fucking disgusting. See ya, Kaner!” And at that, he strides down the hall to the men’s locker room.

Pat shakes her head a little as she makes her way into the women’s locker room, a little shocked at how friendly Shawsy had been right out of the gate. A little voice in the back of her head warns her about how he could’ve been dared, he could just be setting her up for a joke. But he was too genuine for the first and, well, only a girl would do the second. If there is one advantage to hanging around boys, it’s that you usually don’t have to worry about conniving backstabbing plots being thought up just to make you look stupid or weak or less than. With boys, Pat can tell when they’re being awful. Boys are simpler than girls in that way.

Pat showers and changes quickly. She doesn’t have any plans for the rest of the day, so she skips on the makeup and blow drying, instead just doing the bare minimum beauty routine. This locker room isn’t between the men’s and the exit, so she can’t hear her teammates’ conversations like she could in the locker room at the high school, until she’s finally packing up her bag.

“Eh, Sharpy, aren’t you coming with? We’re grabbing Timmie’s!” a voice shouts in the hallway just outside.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you there, don’t wait up. I’ve got my car, it’s just To-es that needs a ride,” Sharp calls back to the mystery voice. He sounds like he’s walking towards the women’s locker room, which, damnit. Pat doesn’t want to talk to Sharp, that handsome energetic bastard.

She stalls walking out of the locker room, even though she’s fully aware that Sharp won’t just leave cause she’s taking a long time. After rearranging her socks ten different times, Pat admits defeat, heaves her bag over her shoulder, grabs her stick, and walks out of the locker room.

As she expected, Sharp is leaning against the wall next to the entrance to the locker room, the seemingly permanent smirk adorning his stupid handsome face and hockey bag at his feet. Pat doesn’t even stop to talk to her teammate, just keeps walking to the exit and trusting that Sharp will catch up.

“So, Kaner, you hear about our three v three games that we do during the summer?” Sharp doesn’t even wait for an answer before continuing, “It’s fucking awesome. There’s gonna be four teams this year. Each team has a senior captain who gets to choose whoever the fuck they want. The captains are Duncs and Seabs, Ladder, Hoss, and of course me.” Sharp finally stops talking long enough to look at Pat, maybe to make sure she isn’t totally zoned out. Apparently what he sees satisfies him, because he continues speaking. “We’re not supposed to talk about who we’re gonna pick, but what the fuck ever. I was gonna pick you even before I saw you on the ice, but damn, you’re fucking good.”

Pat doesn’t even know how to respond to this sudden wave of information. “Thanks, I guess. Although I’m not sure you want me on your team. Too small.”

“Have you seen some of the freshman? They’re smaller, swear to fuckin’ God,” Sharp laughs. “You’ll be fine.”

“Okay, you have a point about the freshman,” Pat concedes.

The two finally reach the parking lot. Pat’s mom is supposed to pick her up, so Pat isn’t surprised that there’s no car waiting for her. Her mom is usually five to ten minutes late.

“Hey, by the way, I’m meeting some of the guys at Timmie’s for coffee and donuts. Wanna join?” Sharp asks.

Pat almost wants to say yes, wants to just see what would happen if she showed up to have coffee with her teammates. But she can’t, not only because she knows her mom is on the way to pick her up and would freak out at if Pat wasn’t there, but also because she is still filled with anxiety about her place on the team. She isn’t sure when she’ll be comfortable to just accept invites to go out with her team, if she ever will be. However, before Pat can figure out a polite way to decline, her mother pulls into the parking lot.

“Sorry, Sharp, that’s my mom. Maybe next time,” Pat calls to her teammate as she rushes towards her mother’s car, opening the backseat and tossing her bag inside.

“See you, Kaner,” he calls after her, and saunters to what must be his car.

“Who is that honey?” Pat’s mom asks as she settles into the passenger seat. “You making friends?”

“Just a teammate, Mom, not quite a friend.” Pat knows her mom will translate that into “not quite friends yet” and she’s okay with that. She doesn’t want her mom to worry about her more than necessary, even if it means misleading her.

 

 

Pat couldn’t be more impatient. She is staring at her cell phone, willing it to ring and display Gags’ name on the screen.

Gags promised he would call to hear about the new team at five o’clock her time, but it’s been six minutes since then and there is still nothing.

That morning, during practice the coaches announced that the three v three teams would be announced the following day and gave them calendars with all the dates and times and information to take home. The whole time, Sharp kept looking over and smirking at Pat knowingly. Sharp really is very strange.

Pat is nervous about the whole thing. She knows she has to be picked by someone, and she doesn’t trust Sharp nearly enough to believe that he’ll pick her. Or maybe he will pick her, because somehow he ended up choosing last. Pat doesn’t know, and she really doesn’t care about what team she’s on because she knows that no matter what, she’s gonna kick ass.

Finally, the phone rings.

“Gags you fucker, you’re almost ten minutes late,” Pat scolds, and she can hear her friend laughing on the other end of the phone. “It’s not fucking funny, you asshole!”

“Pat, it really really is. It was just seven fuckin’ minutes, don’t be such a bitch about it.” Gags is still laughing a little, but suddenly he gets kinda quiet and serious. “I miss you too.” The little admission warms Pat’s heart; it’s good to know that she’s missed. Gags quickly moves on, though, switching the subject to Pat’s new team. “The new team is treating you right, yeah? I don’t have to come up there and kick their asses?”

“Yeah, it’s mostly good,” Pat tells her friend, trying and probably failing to keep the hesitation out of her voice. “There’s this one dude though, and he’s a total asshat. He totally fuckin’ hates my guts, and I want to fuckin’ sucker punch him most of the time.”

Gags cracks up. “Kaner, would you even be able to reach his fuckin’ face?”

“Hey man, that’s not fuckin’ cool man. Just cause I’m always the fuckin shortest doesn’t mean I don’t kick ass,” Pat tells her friend indignantly.

“I didn’t say you don’t kick ass, because that would be pure fuckin’ lies. I said you wouldn’t be able to punch this dickhole in the fuckin’ face,” Gags practically fucking cackles.

“Shut up, maybe you should come up in all your fuckin’ growth spurt glory and punch Toews in the face for me,” Pat grumbles.

“Wait, what’s this douche’s name?” Gags sounds surprised, and the urgency in his tone rattles Pat a little.

“Um, Toews? Jonathan Toews?” Pat answers, unsure why her friend would need this information.

“Holy shit, Patty, do you know who that is?” Without waiting for an answer, Gags continues on. “Pat, Jonathan Toews is big fuckin’ news for Canadian hockey. Like, NHL material, he’s World Juniors material. He’s first round pick material. I can’t fucking believe the dude on your team who fucking hates you is Jonathan fucking Toews.” Gags is almost yelling at Pat through the phone now, and she holds it away from her ear a little bit as protection from the noise. Finally he calms down enough to jokingly say, “See Pat, this is what you miss when you’re a girl. You don’t fucking realize you’re playing on one of the most stacked high school teams in Canada. Pay some fuckin’ attention, Kaner.”

Pat can finally hear the smile in Gags’ voice, so she cuts in. “Sorry I didn’t realize that dickwad Toews is also a fuckin’ bigshot in dude hockey land. Doesn’t make him any less awful to be around.”

Gags laughs at this, and the conversation moves away from Pat and her apparently hockey famous teammate.

 

The morning after her phone call with Gags, Pat wakes up later than usual. She has to rush to get out of the house on time, forget about getting to the rink early for extra ice time.

When she arrives at the rink, Pat dresses and gets on the ice five minutes before practice is supposed to start. Apparently this means she has just enough time to be accosted by Sharp and a tall kid she’s never seen before wearing full gear and a smirk that matches Sharp’s almost perfectly, not in appearance, but in tone.

“Oh, Sharpy, is this the newbie you were telling me about?” the mystery dude asks, sounding way too excited.

“She’s the one, isn’t she adorable?” Pat knows that if she weren’t wearing her helmet Sharp would be pinching her cheeks right now. Or at least trying to. “Her name is Pat and I’ve dubbed her Kaner but I’m trying to come up with something more creative. Any ideas?”

“Nope, but I’ll think about it,” the mystery dude replies.

Pat scowls at the both of them. “Who’s your friend, Sharp?”

“Oh Kaner, I thought we’d talked about this. It’s Sharpy,” Sharp cajoles, far too cheerful for six in the morning. “And this is Bur! Bur graduated last year; he’s the one I told you about who got drafted. Technically he’s not supposed to practice with us, but the coaches let him anyway.”

Pat vaguely remembers something about a kid who was drafted but instead is opting to go to college, in no small part because of how late his name was called during the draft. Pat is pretty sure she shouldn’t bring the last bit up with Bur.

Thankfully, right as Pat is struggling to come up with a way to greet the new person in front of her, a whistle blows, summoning the team to gather around the coaches standing in the middle of the ice.

After everyone has formed a loose semicircle with the coaches in the middle, Coach Martin starts talking.

“So. You all probably know about the three v three games we’re going to be running in the evenings this summer, and hopefully you’re excited. Our captains this year are Duncs, Sharpy, Crow, and Ladder.” As each boy’s name is called, they skate forward and form a line next to the coaches. “Some of you may know Bur; he graduated this past year but loves us so much he just couldn’t stay away. He will also be playing on a team this year.”

The defense coach, whose name Pat isn’t totally certain of yet, picks up where Martin left off. “Each captain gets to pick their rosters, but there has to be an even distribution of freshman and seniors. This year’s rosters are as follows.”

Pat pays attention for couple of picks, not surprised to see Seabrook skate over to stand next to Keith and Shawsy next to Ladd. It’s pretty obvious already that the coaches didn’t bother to switch up the lists to not be in the order of how teams were picked, so Pat decides she can zone out and wait until the very end when her name is bound to be called. This is reinforced when the first name called for team Sharp is Bur.

It turns out Sharp can’t be trusted after all. Pat shouldn’t be as hurt as she is, it’s not really a surprise.

When Jonny is called up to join Keith and Seabrook, he grins and fist bumps both of them. When Saad is called up to join Ladd and Shawsy, he looks like he’s about to wet himself from shock and excitement. Poor kid. Pat doesn’t know any of the names of the boys joining the goalie’s team, but she figures she’ll probably be made to know sooner or later.

When it comes time for the second addition to Sharp’s team to be announced, Pat knows it won’t be her. Maybe she will end up on Sharp’s team, but she knows she won’t be one of the first chosen. She tells herself she’s okay with that, that Sharp gave her no reason to believe what he told her after that first on-ice practice.

“Kaner! Eh, Kane!” Pat hears someone shout. She snaps herself out of her internal monologue to see everyone staring at her.

“Huh? What now?” she asks, and knows she looks dumb. She kicks herself for zoning out. What if she’s missed an important rule or instruction or something?

“Go join Sharpy and Bur, you’re on their team,” Coach tells her, sounding frustrated.

It takes a second for Pat to process this new information, too caught up in her coach’s tone of voice and embarrassment at being caught not paying attention. When she finally catches up to what’s going on, all she can splutter out is a quick “sorry, sorry” before skating over next to Sharp and Bur.

The only thing Pat’s brain can do is keep playing Coach Martin’s words over and over. She totally checks out, only aware enough to make sure she won’t zone out again and miss something the coach has said.

When everyone is finally sorted into teams, Pat snaps out of her shocked haze enough to skate the rest of the practice relatively normally. Pat is totally unaware of anything else besides hockey, however. A couple of times she feels Sharp nudge her with his shoulder, but she doesn’t know why. She just keeps looking at the ice and trying to keep herself together until she can get into the locker room and under the spray of a shower head.

Finally, the team is dismissed to go shower and change, and Pat is one of the first off the ice. Later, she remembers someone calling her name as she rushes to the women’s locker room, but in the moment she is too focused on getting somewhere quiet and alone to hear.

Pat slumps down onto the bench next to her stall and starts undoing her skates while her mind goes a mile a minute.

Now that she thinks about it, Sharp told her that she would be one of the first people he picked, not the first, which makes sense. He and Bur are obviously very good friends, and Sharp wouldn’t have wanted to risk his friend being on his team just to have the girl on his team. But he did choose Pat second, so maybe it has less to do with Pat’s gender and more to do with Bur being a close friend.

That would mean that Sharp has never been trying to trick Pat or set her up for a joke or take advantage. He just wanted to be friends.

Pat has this epiphany standing beneath the shower, and suddenly she wants nothing more than to drown herself in it. She’s been such a bitch to Sharp, and he’s done nothing but try to be friendly and welcoming. Pat was so caught up in her suspicion and anxiety that she didn’t even bother to think about what Sharp’s motives might have been, simply because she had seen him hanging out with Toews.

Pat has no right to be upset about the team not including her when she’s the one pushing them away.

All through getting dressed and packing up her gear Pat is beating herself up internally, frustrated and embarrassed and disappointed with herself. As she walks out of the locker room, she is so wrapped up in her own thoughts that when someone says “Hey Kaner,” she jumps, startled.

Pat turns around to see Sharp and Bur next to the women’s entrance, leaning against the wall with their hockey bags at their feet. They were obviously waiting for her.

“Oh, hey, sorry. You startled me,” Pat says to the two boys, hoping they aren’t angry at her for ignoring them throughout practice. Knowing boys, they probably aren’t, but there’s still always a chance.

Sharp just laughs. “Sorry Kaner, didn’t mean to scare you.” He reaches out to ruffle her hair and she slaps his hand away.

“Don’t mess with the curls, Sharp,” Pat warns, half joking and half serious. If her hair was done, she would be way more upset. “Just ’cause you always look fuckin’ perfect doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t have to try.”

Bur snorts at that, but tactfully switches the subject just as Sharp starts to preen. “Hey, Kaner, we’re going out for coffee and donuts. Wanna join?”

Pat looks at the clock hanging in the hallway and judges when her father will arrive at the rink. Their new house is only a five minute drive away, so she can probably call home and ask if she can go out before anyone leaves to come pick her up.

“Who else will be there?” Pat has to know that first. She doesn’t want to have to sit at a table across from Toews, trying to make normal conversation while he glares daggers at her.

“It’s just gonna be us, actually. Duncs and Seabs have some sort of weird ass BFF date they need to go on once a week otherwise they’ll fuckin’ explode, and Jonny has to be back for some family thing. You don’t mind just hanging out with us, do you?” Sharp tells her, and no, Pat actually doesn’t mind.

“Nah, I’ll survive. Gotta get used to having you two around in order to play on the three v three team,” Pat grins at them. “Just gotta call home and tell them no one needs to come get me.”

Pat pulls out her phone and dials the home phone. Thankfully her mother picks up, and only after the first ring. She wouldn’t want to ask her dad if she could go get donuts; he’s too big of a believer in following stupid nutrition plans he finds in books.

“Hello?” her mom asks.

“Hey Mom, it’s Pat. Has Dad left to get me yet?” Pat asks hopefully.

“No, honey, he’s just about to leave. Do you need something?” Her mother sounds a little concerned, but Pat isn’t sure why.

“No, it’s just that some of the guys have invited me out to get coffee and stuff, so I won’t need a ride home,” Pat tells her mother, hoping she’ll be allowed to go.

Pat’s worry is unwarranted, because her mother’s voice perks up considerably when she replies. “Oh, that sounds lovely. I’ll tell your father he doesn’t need to come get you. Have fun!”

Pat hears the click that means her mother has hung up, and turns around to smile at Bur and Sharp. “I’m in,” she tells them, and they both smile.

“Fuck yeah, let’s head out, then. Bur drove me to practice this morning, so we’re taking his piece of shit car.” Bur shouts in denial and punches Sharp in the arm. “Hey, you bastard, it’s fuckin’ true.”

As they walk out of the building, conversation flows between the three teammates easily. Sharp was right, Bur’s car is a piece of shit. It’s an older Honda Civic with a silver body but two red doors. There are numerous dents and scratches adorning the body of the vehicle. Thankfully it’s a model with doors to the backseat, so Pat doesn’t have to climb over the front passenger seat to get into the car. Unfortunately, three hockey bags take up way more room than the trunk provides, so she has to share the bench seat with Sharp’s disgusting smelling bag.

Bur laughs at the face Pat makes. “Now you know what us dudes have to put up with every fuckin’ day in the locker room. Aren’t you glad you get one to yourself?” he teases, looking back at her and smirking.

Pat knows Bur probably doesn’t mean to hit a hot button, but she can’t help it. Pat knows that if she were in the locker room with the rest of the team it would be easier to build a connection, but she simply can’t do that. Her face must show a hint of the hurt she is feeling, because Sharp’s brows scrunch up and he quickly switches the conversation away.

The rest of the car ride is good, though, and Pat finds that now that she’s allowed herself to trust Sharp, she really likes him. It’s obvious that he and Bur are close in the way that guys usually are; they grin and laugh at each other’s jokes and are able to tease each other about things that would normally be touchy.

Pat can see herself being friends with these two, and she finds herself disappointed that she’s getting to know Bur just before his first year of college.

 

“So, Kaner, you ever been to a Tim Horton’s before?” Bur asks when they’re in line.

“The US does have these, you know,” Pat says defensively. Back in Buffalo she had teammates from Canada who made comments about how much better Timmie’s is whenever the team went to Starbucks or Dunkin, so she’s used to the Canadian judgment.

“Yes, we know, but have you been?” Sharp asks with a smirk.

Pat scowls and looks at her feet. “That seems like a gotcha line of questioning, and I don’t fuckin’ appreciate it.”

Sharp bursts into laughter. “Oh man, Kaner, we’re popping your Timmie’s cherry!” he says ecstatically, and Pat’s frown only deepens and she feels her cheeks heat up. “Oh, don’t pout, it’s okay. The fuckin’ magic of these donuts will cheer you right up.”

The three get up to the register and the boys cajole Pat into letting them pay for her food and drink. When they receive their bag of donuts and cups of coffee, they all meander out onto the deck to eat. It’s only nine o’clock, so it hasn’t gotten too hot outside yet. They pick a table to sit at, and slump into the metal chairs before diving into the donuts.

The first couple of minute is quiet. The three hockey players are starving, so instead of making conversation they all stuff their mouths with the array of donuts purchased.

Finally, when Pat is slowly eating her last donut and the boys have finally started drinking their coffee, the conversation picks up again.

“So, Kaner, you excited to be here in beautiful Winnipeg?” Sharp asks, and Pat gets the feeling that he actually wants to know her genuine feelings.

“Yeah, I mean, it was rough moving up here from Buffalo,” she answers tentatively. She doesn’t want to offend either boy by talking badly about their hometown. “I miss home, and I miss my friends and teammates. Thankfully I have a computer and email so I can keep in touch.”

“So you played high school hockey last year too?” Bur jumps in.

“Yeah, it was fuckin’ awesome. My team and coaches were kickass, and winning a lot didn’t hurt.” Pat grins at the memories of tearing up the ice with Gags and the others, though she feels a hint of melancholy at the thought that all of that is in past tense now

“Varsity, right?” Sharp inquires, and Pat gets the feeling that they’re going to tag team questioning their new teammate about Buffalo for the rest of the outing.

“Yeah, totally, you’ve seen me on the ice,” she teases, and knows they won’t misunderstand what she said as bragging.

“Fuck yeah, man, you have fuckin’ crazy soft hands. I wish I could fuckin’ move a puck around like that,” Sharp says wistfully. “Were you ranked in the state?”

“Oh, yeah, I was. Ffirst for girls, and fifth for overall high school players. It was pretty cool to have stats like that as a girl, and a freshman nonetheless.”

“Dude, that’s fuckin’ awesome. I wish I had rankings like that, fuck. Toes takes all the fuckin’ attention, I swear,” Sharp laments jokingly, obviously not actually frustrated with his teammate.

Pat doesn’t want to talk about Toews, though, not even a little bit. She’s disappointed that he couldn’t have just stayed out of conversation.

“Any plans for the summer?” Pat asks, and Bur groans. Sharp just laughs at him.

“Yeah, ugh. I’m doing this job thing where my dad works. It’s actually just fuckin’ sitting all day three days a week and sorting shit. I’m gonna fuckin’ shoot myself,” Bur complains, his face showing exactly how unhappy he is with it.

Sharp laughs at him. “Don’t be such a pussy, man,” he chirps. Bur just groans again. “My girlfriend has a job lifeguarding at the lake this summer, so I’m probably going to spend a lot of time there,” Sharp says, a soft smile spreading across his face, presumably in reaction to thoughts about his girlfriend.

“Fucking hell, Kaner, don’t get him started on Abby. He’s fuckin’ whipped; I swear to God he turns into a fuckin’ girl around her,” Bur warns, trying to look deadly serious, but a smile is playing at the edges of his lips.

Pat laughs, a big real laugh that makes her feel light. “Is this true, Sharpy?” Pat asks, using the nickname her teammate has insisted she use for the first time, and wins a true, genuine grin from the other boy.

“Slander and lies, Kaner, slander and lies. And even if that shit was true, Abby sure doesn’t mind. Been going strong since freshman year,” Sharp— Pat isn’t quite ready to refer to him as Sharpy in her own head yet— brags.

“Damn, that’s a long fuckin’ time,” Pat says, impressed despite herself with any high schooler who can maintain a relationship that long.

Bur snorts. “What he isn’t telling you is how many times he asked her before she would say yes. Since seventh grade, shit you not.”

Pat laughs. “Damn, Sharpy, Bur’s just exposing all your fuckin’ secrets.”

Sharp laughs and Bur smirks, looking overly pleased with himself. Pat just leans back in her seat and grins at both of them, amused by their antics and happy to hang out with guys again. Pat is glad she’s given Sharp a second chance, glad the two invited her to join them for breakfast.

For the first time since learning about the move to Winnipeg, Pat thinks, this could end up ok after all.

 

 

It’s been just over a month since the three v three teams were announced, Pat went to Timmie’s with Sharpy and Bur, and she decided to try to trust her teammates. Since then, her summer has been rather dull, hockey being her main priority. She has been filling her free time with emailing friends back in Buffalo, talking to Gags about the team over the phone, and occasionally going to the lake with Sharpy and Bur. The two have become Pat’s closest friends on the team.

Duncs and Seabs, it turns out, are good dudes. They are just as weird and touchy and joined at the hip as they appeared at a distance, and Pat is beyond grateful that they play defense for River Heights. She has only ever skated against the two during three v three games, but those times gave Pat more than enough experience to know she is glad to be playing with them when the season finally comes.

Pat is becoming more and more comfortable with the move to Winnipeg. She still misses her friends from back home, misses trips to see her grandfather and going to Sabres games. But she’s almost happy here.

The coaches are assholes, though. They have such an obvious slant against Pat that Shawsy once asked her why they ignore her. Pat didn’t know how to answer his question, didn’t know how to tell him, “It’s because I’m a girl, Shawsy. It’s because they don’t think I should be here.”

Pat is hesitant to makes those jumps after what happened with Sharpy. She feels awful about the way she brushed him off, the way she was so blatantly distrustful. It makes it worse that the longer Pat is with the team, the less hostile Toews is. Now he just gives her his laser eyes when she’s done a drill wrong, or missed a shot. He no longer glares daggers at her from across the ice all the time.

But there’s no denying the fact that these coaches have something against her. She doesn’t receive the same praise as her male counterparts, rarely receives constructive criticism, and never gets any sort of familiar treatment such as calling her by a nickname or getting a smile or the other positive behaviors they exhibit towards the boys.

Pat wants the coaches to put her on the varsity team once it comes time for tryouts, even if she’s playing fourth line. Pat wants an opportunity to prove herself, but she doesn’t see that coming with the current vibe she’s getting from the coaching staff. The closer and closer it’s getting to tryouts, the more nervous Pat gets about being put on JV just because she’s a girl.

 

When Pat shows up for the three v three game the third week of July, it is pouring rain outside. It has been hailing on and off all day, and Pat isn’t surprised when she only sees about a quarter of the usual turnout on the ice. Sharpy skates up to her and pouts.

“Peeks,” he wines, calling her the nickname he had joyfully come up with two weeks prior. “Peeks, you have to play with Tazer and Duncs today. Our team is mostly here but theirs is mostly out. What if they fuckin’ steal you away from us for fuckin’ forever?”

Pat freezes. She’s known that at some point she would probably have to play with Toews, but she didn’t think it would be anytime soon. However, it figures the time would be during three v three, when the coaches have little to no control over what the lines look like.

“Why can’t you play with them?” she asks, just as unhappy as Sharpy that she won’t be playing on his team this evening.

“Duncs called dibs on you, and he’s fuckin’ scary today ’cause Seabs isn’t here,” Sharpy frowns at her, big and pouty and sad. “Now they’re gonna know how fuckin’ awesome it is to play with you and Bur and I will never get you back!”

“Oh Sharpy, I won’t let them take me. You and Bur are always gonna be my fuckin’ favorites,” Pat says, jokingly comforting her teammate. “But for now I guess I better go talk to Duncs and ask him how he wants to play me.”

Sharpy frowns even deeper, but lets her skate off. Just as she’s leaving, she hears him mutter, “I’m gonna get my fuckin’ ass kicked by those two, fuck.”

Pat cracks up.

As it turns out, Duncs wants Pat to play with him and Toews on the first line of what will be three that evening. Pat is a little nervous, still very unsure about where she stands with her bristly teammate. She’s only ever exchanged a couple of words with him, so she has no idea what he thinks of her, only using his persistent glaring as a clue to go off of.

As everyone warms up, Pat tries to take deep breaths and calm herself down, repeating to herself over and over that everything will be fine.

Finally, the first match up starts. Sharpy and Bur are playing against Crow’s team, so Pat pays as much attention as she can in between calming her anxiety. Sharpy’s team wins, and Pat cheers for every goal they score.

The next game, however, is Team Duncs vs Team Ladd. Ladd, Shawsy, and Saader are all there that day, but they don’t all play on a line together for three v three.

As Pat skates to her spot on the right wing and Jonny sets up for the face off, she takes one final deep breath. Slowly in, hold, slowly out.

The puck drops, and they’re off. Toews loses the faceoff, but Duncs is amazing as always, a strong skater and great checker, putting pressure on Ladd and his linemates to take pressure off their JV goalie. Toews skates in to help Duncs out, but Pat hangs back, knowing that if she tries to get in the fray it will just screw everyone else up. She’s not big or strong enough to be a two way forward, not like Toews.

Finally, Duncs gets the puck and snaps a clean pass up to where Pat is, just past their blue line. She slaps the puck around a bit, evading the other team’s players, then finally skates into the offensive zone. Suddenly, Ladd’s d-man is right there, all up in her business. He’s huge, probably not good enough to play very many minutes in a varsity game, but his size alone is enough to strain Pat’s play. She passes the puck to where she knows Toews should be, where the best spot for him to appear would be.

And she hears the clack that means the puck has made contact with the blade of another player’s stick. Pat looks up just in time to see Toews fire a clean wrister into the top of the net. She roars, overcome with the joy of scoring, and without even thinking launches into a celly with the boy. Toews shouts into her ear, something about a pass and “Fuckin’ telepathy Kaner, fuck” before Duncs hits them both full speed.

For the rest of the evening, whenever Pat and Toews are on the ice at the same time, it’s like magic. Their team scores almost every time they’re on the ice together, and their opponents are starting to look more and more frustrated. Pat even scores two of their four goals that night, though she’s surprised that Toews even gave her the opportunity to score. Based off of his bristly demeanor, she thought he would’ve wanted all the glory to himself.

 

After the last matchup of the evening, Pat is flying high. Sharpy already promised to take her out to dinner as a reward for her two goals, and Shawsy gave her a big thump on the back, saying, “Nice fuckin’ goals, Kaner.”

Pat climbs into the back of Sharpy’s car, while Bur gets into the front.

“Where we heading?” Bur asks.

“Um, I think Tazer said he wanted something healthier. So, probably that fuckin’ weird hippy diner he likes,” Sharpy says casually.

Pat’s heart rate instantly picks up. She knows it’s silly to be so afraid of just having a casual meal with one of her teammates, but Toews has been such an asshole. Pat doesn’t feel like she is assuming things about Toews that are untrue simply based off of her anxiety; she is basing this off of the way the boy has treated her.

On the way to dinner, Sharpy and Bur make casual conversation in the front, trading chirps and quick stories back and forth. It’s a quick drive, thankfully, so there isn’t enough time for the two to realize how quiet Pat is being.

They pull up in front of the restaurant right next to Duncs’ truck. The establishment isn’t one Pat has been to before, but it does indeed look hippy as fuck, and she is immediately made even more unhappy due to the obvious lack of greasy junk food to be had. When she and her two companions walk in, they are flagged over by Duncs, Toews sitting across from them looking slightly less cranky than usual. He must not have spotted Pat yet.

Pat takes a seat on the opposite side of the table as Toews, taking her place next to Duncs.

He slaps her on the back. “Well, if it isn’t our little goal scorer. How does it feel to be the new sweetheart of Team Keith?”

Pat feels her cheeks go warm, and a quick glance over at Toews proves that his scowl has grown. “I don’t know if I’m the new sweetheart, wouldn’t want to take that position away from the dearly missed Seabs.”

Duncs gives her a full belly laugh at that, and everyone else around the table chuckles. Except for Toews, obviously. The only reaction he gives is a slight lessening of his deep frown.

“Okay, the sweetheart for tonight,” Duncs amends, a huge smile on his face.

“You and Kaner were fuckin’ terrifying, Toes,” Sharpy says, craning his neck out to be able to look at the cranky boy sitting down the table.

“I’m always terrifying on the ice, Sharpy,” Toews scowls again before continuing. “It would only make sense for that to get scarier with a crazy fuckin’ good winger.”

Pat slams her knees up into the table in surprise. She never would’ve thought Toews would make their success about anyone but himself, much less compliment her. Sharpy gives her a questioning look, but she just waves him off.

“I don’t know, Toews, you never look all that scary to me,” Pat chirps, willing to take her chances that Toews won’t take it the wrong way.

He frowns at her before replying, “Must just be because we never play against each other. If the coaches were willing to risk your fragile femininity, then maybe you could see what I’ve got.”

Bur cackles, and says “Oh, trust me, Kaner’s femininity is anything but fuckin’ fragile.”

“Fuck yeah,” Duncs adds in. “You wouldn’t be fuckin’ saying that if it was you who was elbowed in the gut the other week by little Kaner here.”

Toews snorts. “She needs a better nickname than Kaner,” he says, and Pat’s derision is immediately sparked again. Sharpy and Bur had forgotten about coming up with a more creative nickname for Pat, and she was beyond thankful for that. But now Sharpy’s got that glitter in his eye that means he’s up to no good, and Pat feels a shiver go up her spine.

“Ooh, Toes, I almost fuckin’ forgot. Thanks for reminding me,” Sharpy smirk, and Pat puts her head in her hands and groans. “I have some ideas, but my favorites are Peeks and Peekaboo. Kinda fits with her first name, don’t you think?” he asks the table at large, and Pat wants to shoot herself.

Duncs laughs, big and loud and damning. “Thats fuckin’ perfect. Little Peeks, I fuckin’ love it.”

“Why do I have to have a bad nickname?” Pat groans. “The rest of you have fuckin’ cool nicknames. Now there’s gonna be fuckin’ Tazer and Shooter and Jigsaw and Peekaboo.”

Sharpy just laughs more, obviously enjoying her pain. Pat has never hated her teammate more.

“I’m already not taken seriously, and now you’ve added fucking Peekaboo on top of that,” Pat whines, but she knows from the laughs surrounding her that it’s too late to avoid these horrible nicknames. She’s pretty sure Sharpy hasn’t meant to make Pat even less intimidating than before, but she knows that’s probably what has happened.

The rest of the meal goes well, though, besides the fact that everyone has started to call her Peeks or Peekaboo. Toews isn’t too bad, and maybe he’s just cranky all the time with everyone. A tiny bit of guilt starts to creep into Pat’s mind, and she’s unsure if maybe she should give Toews a second chance. But just as she starts to think about it a little more, her attention is pulled back to the chirps and anecdotes flying back and forth across the table.

 

It’s almost the end of the summer. School is coming soon, and before that, hockey tryouts. Pat is infinitely more anxious about the latter than the former.

Before she knows it, instead of tryouts being weeks away, there are only days until the monumental event. Pat can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop thinking about the possible ways the coaches could manipulate the rosters to put her on a lower team.

She knows that Sharpy, Duncs, Seabs, Saader, and Shawsy are all going to be on the highest level varsity team; they’re all obviously good enough. Pat knows she’s good enough to play with them; she knows she’s good enough to start even. What she doesn’t know is if the coaches will agree that a girl should be playing at that level.

It’s the Monday of the week of tryouts, and practice has just wrapped up. It’s dryland today, so everyone has to make the long trek back to the locker rooms inside the high school to shower and change. Pat walks into the building, talking loudly with Sharpy before heading in different directions towards their respective locker rooms.

While making her way towards the women’s locker room, she hears someone calling her name.

“Patricia,” the voice says, and she turns around to see Coach Martin standing in the hallway with his arms crossed. “Could I speak to you for a moment in my office?”

Pat is immediately wary. The coaches have never pulled her aside, not to welcome her onto the team, not to address issues with gender differences, not to make sure the team was welcoming her. The staff rarely even has coached her; they almost never give her even negative feedback, much less positive remarks. Anything that could possibly warrant a private meeting with Pat couldn’t be good.

“Yeah, totally, Coach. Could I shower and change first?” she asks, genuinely wanting to get out of her sweaty clothes and shower off, but also wanting to stall and mentally prepare for the bomb she guesses is about to be dropped on her head.

Coach Martin presses his lips together, obviously not pleased with her response. “Sure,” he replies gruffly, “but don’t take too long.”

Pat quickly thanks her coach before rushing to the women’s locker room to wash up quickly. After she finishes, her hair is dripping down the front of her hoodie and her things are haphazardly stuffed inside her duffel bag. On her way to Coach Martin’s office, she passes some of the guys standing around.

“Yo, Peeks, you up for breakfast?” Duncs calls out to her as she rushes past. Pat turns around and starts walking backwards, calling out to her friends as she continues down the hall.

“Sorry, boys, gotta talk to the coaches.”

They all laugh at her, making fun for possibly getting in trouble. Pat just brushes it off, turns around, and focuses on taking deep breaths to calm down about the meeting.

Once she reaches the door, she stops just outside of view and takes a deep breath, straightening out her appearance. Finally she turns the handle and steps into the office.

“Hey, Coach, you wanted to talk to me?” she asks, trying to appear unflappable and under control.

The man looks up from the computer sitting on his desk and reaches to turn off the monitor. “Yes, Patricia, please take a seat,” he tells her.

Pat notices the formality with which her coach is treating her right away; none of the coaches talk to any of the other players like that. She is immediately put even more on edge than she already was.

Pat takes a seat in one of the two uncomfortable looking chairs on the opposite side of the desk as Martin. The whole office is filled with cheap school furniture, but that isn’t what one would notice at first. The walls are covered in pictures of boys clad in River Heights hockey jerseys and accolades to Martin’s coaching and the performance of his team over the years. There aren’t any trophies for the numerous championships River Heights has won— those all reside in the trophy case downstairs— but there are plaques and certificates and various other tributes to the successes of the River Heights High School hockey program.

Frankly, the decor is rather intimidating.

Pat takes a deep breath, trying to conceal this one, and focuses her attention on her coach sitting across from her.

“As you know, tryouts will take place this Friday and continue into the weekend,” Martin starts, sounding unwavering and a little bothered. Pat sits up a little straighter in her chair. “Obviously you will be going through the same tryouts process all of the incoming freshman are going through, just as every new member of this organization has ever done. You will not be given any favors; you will be held to the same standard as the rest of the boys in the program. I hope you understand that if you do not perform satisfactorily, we will have no choice but to cut you from this organization.”

Pat inhales quickly, shocked at the frankness of her coach’s words. She knew that the coaches wouldn’t be giving her special treatment, and obviously she doesn’t want or need it. But to suggest they would cut her is unreal. Pat knew, of course, that hockey is a cut sport here. Obviously she understood that. But she also always assumed that they would at least keep her to play on the lowest JV team— she hadn’t even considered the possibility of being cut.

“Patricia, I hope we will not have any issues with this tryouts process. I’ve already received too much communication from your father on the subject of your position in this organization. Please try to act like everyone else on the team. Don’t expect we will treat you any differently simply because of your… unique positions.” Martin is nearly scowling, the wrinkle between his eyebrows defined and telling Pat exactly how displeased her coach is.

Pat can only nod, utter out a quick, “I understand, Coach.”

“Good. You’re dismissed.”

Pat rushes out of the office, only remembering to grab her duffel bag out of sheer luck. She walks briskly down the hall, trying to swallow her emotions. What if the guys see? They’ll think her a pussy, a bitch, a girl if they see her crying.

Sharpy is waiting by the front doors of the school, leaning against the wall and staring at the floor tiles. When he hears Pat coming, he looks up grinning, but quickly his expression shifts into something more serious. His brow wrinkles, the corners of his mouth pull down.

“You okay, Peeks?” he asks her, a hint of concern coloring his voice.

Pat steels herself, tries to make her voice as emotionless as possible when she responds, “Yeah, everything is fine. Coach just wanted to talk about tryouts.” Pat can’t even bring herself to tell a quick joke to diffuse the situation though, so she knows Sharpy will remain concerned. She sees his eyebrows move even closer together and his slight frown deepen, but she tells herself not to worry about it. Right now she needs to hold herself together until she gets home.

 

“Fucking what?” Gags shouts over the phone, sounding more angry than Pat has ever heard him sound. “That sonofabitch said fucking what???”

“Gags, Gags, chill, man,” Pat says, trying to placate her friend. She knows it won’t work, though— her voice keeps cracking, giving away that she’s close to tears about the possible situation.

Gags doesn’t chill, instead growling, “Fuck you, you can’t fucking tell me to chill. Aren’t you fucking pissed, Kaner? Aren’t you so fucking angry about this? This is fucked up, that’s what this is. He basically straight up told you he was gonna cut you! You, Pat, you! One of the best players I’ve ever fucking seen.” By the end Gags sounds like he wants to hit something.

At this, Pat breaks. She bursts into tears, letting out ugly embarrassing sobs that she would normally only ever let her sisters hear. She can’t believe she’s letting one of her guy friends hear her being so emotional, so vulnerable, so girly. She’s so fucking embarrassed, but she can’t stop. Pat isn’t sure what she’s saying, it’s so incoherent. What she’s trying to tell her friend is that she isn’t fucking mad, she’s fucking terrified. She’s trying to tell Gags how scared she is that she’ll be cut, that she won’t get to play this year, that she’ll lose the attention of the Team USA scouts who have been lurking around ever since she was in eighth grade. She’s trying to tell him how much she doesn’t want to lose the only friends she has in Winnipeg, because there’s no way they’ll want to be around her if she’s fucking cut.

After a bit, Gags starts talking to her through the phone, sounding a little panicky but like he’s trying to stay calm.

“Pat, hey, Pat,” he says. “Pat, what’s wrong? Hey man, calm down.”

Pat gasps for breath, takes a deep breath. In. Out. Repeat.

After a few repetitions, her mind starts to clear. At first the clarity is refreshing; Pat can think, she’s not hysterical anymore. But after a second, mortification rushes over Pat. She takes a sharp breath in and drops her head into her hands. How could she have let herself show so much emotion to Gags like that? What if he tells her old teammates?

When interacting with guys, Pat relies on remaining as simple emotionally as possible. She knows that guys don’t show emotions to each other, no matter how toxic that is. She knows that if she acts too vulnerable, too girly or feminine, the guys will dump her. It’s just a fact of life, because it’s easier to deal with someone who isn’t crying all the fucking time. The outburst of emotion she allowed Gags to witness puts all of what she’s worked towards with the guys at risk. There’s no way to predict how he’ll act, but Pat has a gut feeling it won’t be good.

“Hey, Pat, you good?” Gags’ voice comes through the phone, just barely audible.

“Yeah, Gags, I’m good. Sorry about that,” Pat says, trying to get a firm grip on her emotions.

“Pat, you didn’t sound so good there. What’s up?” Gags sounds like he’s talking to a frightened animal, a creature that is scared and shivering and might lash out and attack if treated the wrong way. Pat isn’t surprised Gags is treating her this way; she’d be shocked if he ever has had to deal with a hysterical girl before in his life, much less a teammate.

“It’s fine, Gags, I’m fine.” Pat just wants to move on from this conversation. She wants to hang up and bury herself in bed and cry and worry and maybe even indulge in some chocolate. Pat wants to throw a fucking pity party for herself, and she isn’t in the mood for fumbling half-hearted attempts at comfort from her friend.

“I’m not an idiot, Pat, I wasn’t fucking born yesterday. You’re pretty obviously not fine, and you should fucking trust me enough to tell me what’s wrong,” Gags snaps. His voice is sharp now, leaving no room for argument, but Pat can detect a hint of hurt underneath it. She’s taken aback at Gags’ large reaction, unsure about how to proceed.

“Gags,” she says, whining a little. “Gags, it’s fine. I’ll go talk to Erica.”

“Pat, fucking talk to me. I want you to trust me, goddammit.” Gags sound desperate now, and his rapid shifts in tone are throwing Pat off. “You just had a full on explosion of like, negative fucking energy and I want to know why and how I can make it better. I know I’m a fucking idiot at emotion, Pat, but at least let me try.”

Pat breathes in deep, and lets it out in a huge sigh. “Fine Gags, fine,” she says, giving into her friend’s demand. She takes another deep breath, unsure about how her former teammate will respond. “I don’t think you get how hard it is to be the only girl on a hockey team. I literally just don’t think you fucking get it.” Pat waits, expecting Gags to say something, but nothing comes. She lays back onto her bed, figuring that if she’s going to have this conversation she might as well do it while comfortable.

“It’s so fucking hard to be the odd one out, to be the one who doesn’t fit. It was hard even with teams and coaches who accepted me, but on a team with people who don’t want me there, it’s a million times harder. I have to fight for every pass, for every little bit of recognition. I have to fight for coaching, and I have to fight to be a real competitor. I have to fight to be on a line where I belong, and I have to fight against shitty sexist comments from opposing teams. I always have to fucking worry about how much of myself I’m expressing. I can’t let you guys see too much, because you won’t want some fucking emotional prissy girl on the team. There’s so fucking much I have to worry about every fucking day, just because I’m the only fucking one.”

Once Pat stops talking, there’s only silence coming from her cell phone speaker. Finally, after what feels like forever, Pat says something. “Listen, Gags, I’m sorry for putting all this on you. I’ll go now, have a good evening.” She’s dejected, so disappointed that someone she considered one of her best friends would react to her transparency like this.

Just as she’s about to hang up however, Gags shouts, causing a large crackle in the sound coming from Pat’s speakers due to the volume. “Wait! Pat, wait, no, listen to me. Sorry I didn’t respond, sorry I’m being such a fuckin’ douche. Pat, I just, I don’t even fucking know what to say to you right now. I’m sorry.”

Pat stops, takes a breath. She isn’t sure how to respond to this, isn’t sure how to have this conversation with Gags. She’s never discussed this with anyone but her sister.

“Pat, I just want you to know that I’m fucking here for you, ok? If you ever need anything, I’m fucking here for you.” Gags sounds resolute and sure. That alone calms Pat more than she could have imagined. Normally she wouldn’t trust Gags’ promise, but for some reason she does now. She has a feeling that he means what he says, and it’s comforting.

She takes a moment to figure out what to say to her friend, unsure how to express the gratitude warming her chest. Finally she just decides on a simple, “Thank you, Gags,” said softly and as genuinely as Pat knows how to make her words. There’s a moment of quiet before Gags responds.

“So, you gonna pull any sick dekes out of your bag of tricks to totally wow everyone in tryouts?” Gags’ voice is light now, teasing. Pat laughs, and the conversation veers away.

 

Pat has been sleeping in for the past week, and it’s one of the best things she’s ever experienced. Pat knew that she would enjoy getting an extra couple of hours of sleep with no morning practice, but she hadn’t remembered how great it is to get those extra hours later in the morning, or how amazing it is to be able to stay up late watching movies with her sisters. The start of school is only a week and a half away, but Pat is ignoring it to the best of her abilities. Why focus on the start of something that will undoubtedly be miserable and boring and lonely when she could enjoy the openness of her days right now.

It’s been five days since tryouts, and Pat’s getting antsier and antsier every day that she waits to see what team she’s been placed on. The coaches said it would take them about a week to get everything sorted out, but Pat doesn’t want to wait a week. She wants to know the results now, goddamnit.

Every evening, when the Kane family sits down for dinner, her father asks Pat if she’s gotten a letter in the mail that day while he was at work, and every evening she has to tell him no. This constant worrying from her father doesn’t help Pat’s anxiety, not by a long shot. She knows that her father is only being so pushy because he cares about her, but it’s hard to have to deal with him sometimes. Pat loves hockey, but sometimes it feels like her father cares more about her hockey that she does.

 

Pat yanks open her front door, yelling goodbye to Sharpy as he pulls away from the house.

“Hey, Mom, I’m home!” she calls out.

“I’m in the kitchen!” comes the reply, and Pat walks to the kitchen to properly greet her mother. Once she steps foot inside, she can see her mom is baking, taking advantage of the rainy cool weather they’ve been getting for the past couple days. “There’s mail for you, sweetie,” her mother tells her, looking down at her baking. Then she looks up, a small grin on her face. Pat’s heart leaps, hoping the letter is what she thinks it is. “Looks like its from the school.”

“Oh my gosh, Mom, where is it?” she asks excitedly. Her mother points to the breakfast table and Pat rushes over to rip the letter open.

After struggling with the envelope for far too long, her hands shaking with her barely controlled nerves, Pat unfolds the letter and begins to read.

Congratulations Ms. Patricia Kane for making River Heights High School’s Varsity Hockey Team, we’re excited to have you play for us this season.

Pat shrieks, not bothering to read the rest of the letter. She’s gotten the important part.

She’s gonna be on the varsity team. She’s gonna play with Sharpy and Duncs and Seabs. She’s gonna win.

“Pat, honey? Is everything ok?” Pat turns around to face her mother and sees that Jackie has poked her head into the kitchen to see what’s going on.

Pat runs to hug her mom, shouting “Mom, Mom, I made it! Oh my gosh, I made it!” Her mom laughs and wraps her up in her arms.

“I knew you could do it, Patty, I knew it. You’re gonna do it, Pat, you’re gonna do it,” says Pat’s mom, her voice jubilant and excited in Pat’s ear.

“Oh my god, Pat!” Jackie cries and runs to join the embrace. She shouts out to the rest of the house, “Pat made it, oh my god!”

Where normally Jackie would’ve gotten a reprimand for “using the Lord’s name in vain,” Pat’s mom is too wrapped up to care.

A thundering sound comes from above, signaling Jess and Erica rushing down to see Pat. Suddenly all Pat can feel or hear or see is her family surrounding her, happy for her success.

She makes a mental note to call Gags later, to scream into the phone about this accomplishment and how fucking excited she is to tear up the ice. But for now, Pat lets her mother and sisters wrap her up in their pride and love and support, and she basks in the warmth of her family.


	2. fall

Pat is exhausted. The first week of school dragged by, seemingly taking an eternity. She isn’t sure, though, how suddenly it’s the middle of September, how suddenly three weeks have sped by without her noticing.

Pat’s schedule is okay, she guesses. She isn’t taking any advanced classes; Pat does well in school, but she does well in her normal regular grade level classes. She does well because of hockey.

She has English and math with Shawsy, and French with Schmaltzy and Saader. It’s kind of embarrassing to be taking a freshman level French class, but she’ll live. In New York a second language wasn’t required, so she didn’t take one, instead choosing to take two PE classes. Here in Canada, apparently French is simply expected. Pat isn’t surprised, necessarily, but she is a little miffed.

Pat has lunch with Crow and Bollig, guys she knows but didn’t really hang out with over the summer. She sat with them for the first week, making awkward conversation mostly about hockey, but after that she made friends with some girls in her classes who invited her to hang out with them at lunch.

Pat still sees Sharpy and Duncs and Seabs at practice three times a week, not counting games, but it’s not the same as getting to hang out with them virtually every day after morning practices. It isn’t helped that Bur is off at UW-Madison. Not only did he play 3 v 3 with them, but he also routinely hung out with them during the day. Sharpy isn’t so good at hiding how much he misses his best friend, but everyone pretends that nothing is going on.

Honestly, the only reason Pat isn’t super super lonely at school is because of the girl friends she’s made.

Ever since she started playing hockey with guys, Pat’s social circles have been comprised of nearly all boys. She hasn’t had a sleepover since fifth grade, and hasn’t ever been shopping with anyone but her sisters and their friends. Now though, now that she’s starting over and no longer known as the weirdo sports girl, Pat is free to make friends with as many girls as she wants.

The craziest thing for Pat is that her female peers actually want to hang out with her. Already Carrie from her biology class has taken Pat to the local mall twice with her friends, and Pat sits with their group at lunch. She’s so happy to be hanging out with actual girls. It’s crazy to be able to whine about dumb girl things like her hair or makeup, or be able to ask how she looks without being ridiculed. Pat has actually started to try more on her appearance when getting ready in the morning, knowing that the girls will appreciate her effort where the guys never noticed the difference.

The only thing is that Pat is hesitant to tell these girls that she’s playing hockey. All of her new friends play soccer or run cross country or figure skate. All of their brothers have played hockey too, and Pat recognizes a couple of names from the JV or Tier 2 Varsity team. But none of them talk about playing hockey themselves, and Pat isn’t surprised. River Heights is located in a pretty conservative area; it would make sense that parents would put the boys in hockey and the girls in figure skating.

Knowing all of that, Pat isn’t sure how these girls would react to her playing hockey for their school. She doesn’t want her new friends to think she’s weird, so she keeps her mouth shut about hockey and tries not to be seen talking to the guys when her girl friends are around. She knows they’ll figure it out eventually, probably once the winter season starts. But Pat wants to make sure her new friends like her first before knowing about her sport.

 

Pat stomps off the ice after the final buzzer goes off, anger filling her from head to toe. She just spent another game on the bench, waiting and hoping and praying her hardest that the coaches would just fucking play her. Yeah, she’s dressing for the Tier 1 games, but dressing for a game doesn’t count when she isn’t fucking on the ice playing. All she did the entire game was watch as Toews’ wingers missed pass after pass after pass, ruining their center’s scoring chances. She had to just sit there as she watched Toews play, obviously needing an actually fucking competent player on his wing.

Sure, River Heights won, thanks to a beautiful goal from Sharpy late in the third, and sure, it’s the fall season. Their play right now barely counts for anything. But Pat literally doesn’t give a shit about either of those things. Her team’s first line forwards should be scoring more but they fucking aren’t because Toews’ wingers can’t get their shit together.

It is infuriating.

When she reaches the locker room set aside for her at the back of the building, Pat throws off her gloves and helmet and screams. She doesn’t know how to properly express the sheer fury she’s feeling right now. Pat knows deep down that her anger isn’t just anger; it’s embarrassment at being the only player on either team to not play a single minute, disappointment that she didn’t get to skate in a game, and sadness that she isn’t getting to help her team, isn’t getting an opportunity to prove herself.

Pat stomps around the changing room, muttering to herself angrily. She can’t help but replay the game in her head over and over, picking apart her team’s play and inserting herself into the game to fix their mistakes.

When she finally emerges from her locker room, she comes face to face with her parents. Her mother looks a little nervous, clutching onto her father, fingers digging into his arm. Pat’s dad looks stern, angry. The bottom of her stomach drops, suddenly at her feet. She knows that her dad is going to want to know why she didn’t play for the third game in a row, why she wasn’t on the ice scoring goals.

Pat knows her ride home won’t be good.

The walk out to the car is awkward. Pat’s mom tries to make polite conversation, but it goes right over Pat’s head. She couldn’t tell you what her mother said if there was a gun pointed at her head.

Once the car doors slam shut, a deafening silence settles over the occupants. Finally, Pat takes it upon herself to break it, after they’ve been sitting in the parking lot for a good two minutes.

“Dad, listen,” she starts, before being interrupted by her father.

“Patricia, I want to know why you weren’t on the ice the entire game. Are the coaches punishing you for acting out? Why haven’t I received any correspondence about the issue?” Her father’s voice fills up the entire car, and Pat presses herself back against the car seat.

“No, Dad, it’s not me, I promise. Just... please listen to me,” Pat pleads. She really doesn’t want her father to go storming into the coaches office and give them even more of a reason to treat her differently. She doesn’t want special treatment, she just wants what she deserves.

Pat’s dad turns around to face her from his position in the driver’s seat. His face is stormy. “Patricia, if you’re causing an issue on the team, that is unacceptable. Your mother and I have raised you to treat your coaches and teammates with respect. And frankly, I don’t see another reason why the coaches aren’t letting you skate.”

“Honey,” Pat’s mom says to her father, placating, before trailing off at the steely glance her husband gives her.

“I expect to see you on the ice during the next game Pat, or we will have to talk to the coaches about what your mother and I can do at home to help with your behavior.” It’s obvious her father is serious from his tone of voice, and Pat nods to show her understanding.

She isn’t sure how she’s going to get herself on the ice in a week, but she’ll figure it out. She always figures it out.

 

 

Pat keeps rethinking her decision to talk to Toews about this. Every time she opens her mouth to speak to the older boy, she backs out and doesn’t say anything.

But the next game is in two days and Toews is the only player who she knows the coaches will listen to. He’s too talented a player for coaches to completely disregard his opinion, and everyone knows it. Sure, technically Seabs is the captain, but Toews acts the part.

“Hey, Toews,” Pat calls out down the rink hallway, trying to catch her teammate before he disappears out the front door. He turns around to look at her, raising a judgmental eyebrow.

“What is it, Kaner?” he asks. Pat walks quicker to reach where he is right by the rink entrance. Once she reaches him, Toews pushes open the door and keeps walking out into the parking lot.

“Ok, so, I need your help with the coaches,” Pat starts. “I know you’ve probably noticed that they haven’t been letting me skate at all during games, and my parents are really concerned about it. I need to skate the next game or my dad will… Well, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is that I need you to ask them to let me skate.”

Toews looks at her again. Pat can’t help but feel like she’s under a microscope. “Why can’t you ask the coaches?” Toews asks, more monotone than Pat knew was possible.

“Well, I, um…” Pat trails off. She doesn’t want to explain to Toews how they won’t listen to her because she’s in possession of a pair of boobs and a uterus. That’s just embarrassing, especially when talking to the best player at River Heights. Toews gives her a look though, one that says exactly how little he will care about her issues if she doesn’t fucking explain clearly. “It’s because I’m a girl,” Pat says quietly, rushing the words as if taking less time saying them will make them any less impactful.

The thing is, Toews doesn’t look surprised, just resigned at Pat’s words. He sighs, big and exasperated. After a couple of moments, the two have reached Toews’ beat up SUV, and they stop there.

“You have a ride home, Kaner?” he asks, as softly as a monotone can sound.

Pat just shakes her head. She was going to get a ride from Sharpy today, but he bailed at the last second. She was going to have to call her mom, but it looks like now she won’t have to.

“Okay, get in, then. I’ll drive you home,” Toews tells her before opening up the trunk and throwing his bag in. Pat does the same before circling around to the passenger seat and settling into the car.

After they’ve pulled out of the rink parking lot, Toews finally responds to the request Pat made in the parking lot.

“I’ll talk to them,” he tells her, voice brisk. Pat flinches a little at the cold tone of voice, hoping it isn’t about her. “It’s not fair to keep you from playing just because of your gender.” At that, Pat thinks that maybe his exasperation and coldness isn’t about her; instead it’s about the coaches. This makes something warm bloom in her stomach. It’s similar to the warm feeling she gets when Gags gets all heated about her minutes and team placements, but a little different. Almost… fluttery.

“Thank you,” she says, real quiet. However, even she knows that it sounds so, so sincere. She glances over at Toews to see him looking at her, his laser eyes softer than she’s ever seen them. Pat isn’t sure what to think of that, so she pushes it aside to mull over later.

The rest of the ride is quiet, the radio a muted background noise to keep the silence from becoming awkward. Every couple minutes Pat will give directions, but other than that the two don’t try any small talk.

It’s comfortable, honestly. Pat never would have expected to feel so at ease with the guy who she was sure hated her guts, but here she is.

Finally they pull up in front of Pat’s house.

“Thanks for the ride,” she tells Toews, sounding a little softer than she meant to.

“No problem, Kaner,” he responds, actually sounding like he means it. “If Sharpy ever bails again, I got your back.” He looks over at her and smiles, and Pat can’t help but smile back.

She climbs out of the car, grabs her hockey bag, throws it over her shoulder, and trudges inside. Pat honestly can’t believe that she just had that conversation with Toews, and that it worked out so well. She lets out a huge sigh of relief. Thank fucking God.

She’s gonna play.

 

Two days later, Pat throws up her arms in celebration after Toews makes a beautiful goal off of Pat’s assist. She crows in celebration as Toews slams into her shouting into her ear.

Pat’s playing, she’s playing, she’s playing. Not just that, but she’s winning too.

When her line gets back to the bench, Pat leans over to talk into Toews’ ear. “Thank you,” she says. Her teammate just turns his head to look at her, a grin spreading across his face.

A spark runs up Pat’s spine. She tells herself it’s just the excitement of the game, and turns back to pay attention to the game.

 

“What the fuck was that pass?” Pat screams at Toews. It’s intermission, and Pat and Toews are standing in the hallway shouting at each other about a turnover from a failed pass halfway through the period they just played.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Kaner? I put the puck where you should’ve been!” Toews shouts back at her, and Pat just steps even further into his face.

She sticks her finger in his face, pointing it at him accusingly. “What the fuck are you talking about?! I was exactly where I needed to be. If I had gotten any closer to the net, that fucking huge defenseman would’ve taken me out!”

“No, he wouldn’t! Besides, you can always just skate around big dudes like that, you fucking idiot,” Toews growls at Pat.

“Are you high?” The pitch of Pat’s voice raises unexpectedly, and Toews cringes a little at the sound she makes. “I can’t fucking skate around a dude that size while being on the other side of a pass like the one you thought was a good idea! I’m not magical, you fucking dumbass.” Pat’s now waving her arms around wildly, and the two of them keep raising their voices.

“I’ve fucking seen you get a pass like that before! Just this week in practice, you practically skated under Duncs to get a pass of mine!” Toews shouts at her, and Pat laughs meanly.

“You really fucking think that Duncs and a stranger are going to hit me the same? Do you know how many dirty hits I have to deal with? Do you fucking understand that?” Pat’s gotten quiet, dangerous. She wants Toews to know exactly why she can’t fucking take the same risks the rest of the guys can. “I’m not going to put myself in danger of injury for a fucking fall season goal, you fucking moron.”

Toews steps back, and his face changes slightly. There’s a moment before he responds, and even then it’s simple and quiet. “Sorry, I didn’t realize. I’ll talk to the guys, try to make sure you have more room around the net.”

Pat’s face must betray the surprise on her face, though Toews must think it’s about his solution and not the apology. “Your wrister is fuckin’ deathly, Kaner, we gotta make sure you can do your thing.”

That actually pulls a grin from Pat, because fuck yeah, her wrister is fuckin’ awesome. “Thanks Toews,” she tells him. Toews frowns a little, which doesn’t seem right.

“Call me Jonny,” he tells her, and Pat thinks about it for a second. Maybe Toews isn’t so bad, and she should really stop trying to build distance between herself and her teammates.

So Pat smiles up at her teammate, says, “Yeah, okay, I guess I can do that, Jonny.” He gives her a small grin, warm and genuine, and Pat feels something warm bubble in her chest. However, the moment is broken when Sharpy’s voice comes from further down the hall.

“Eh! Tazer! Peeks! We gotta get ready to get back on the ice!”

Jonny looks down at Pat and shrugs. “Guess it’s time to hit it, yeah? I’ll talk to the guys about clearing up the crease for you.” At that, he starts walking back towards the rink entrance, and Pat has no choice but to follow. The next period is gonna be beautiful fucking hockey, she can feel it.

 

Pat is walking through the halls, moving at a languid pace. She isn’t exactly sure where she wants to go, and she’s a little unsure about what to spend her off hour doing.

Usually she would spend third hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays hanging with Sammy, who would help Pat with some homework between gossip and light banter. However, the older girl is out sick today; Faith told Pat something about a bad cold.

So now Pat has nowhere to go. Their usual hangout spot sounds uncomfortable and lonely without her friend, and she is hesitant to go to the library. However, right now that sounds like the best option.

Pat makes her way to the second floor, pushes open the doors to the library, and steps inside. She’s stuck for a moment; despite the silliness of it, Pat has no idea where to sit. There are a handful of sofas to sit on, five or six tables, and some individual chairs, all bathed in the sunlight coming from the wall of windows on the far side of the room. However, most places already have at least one person sitting there, and Pat really isn’t in the mood to have to deal with uncomfortable small talk while she tries to figure out geometry.

However, when she scans the room a second time, there’s someone staring at her whose back was turned just a second ago. And, of course, that someone is Jonny.

Instead of smiling at Pat and waving her over, her teammate just stares at her, face no lighter than it ever is. Pat heaves out a big sigh at the boy’s stubborn and serious demeanor, but still walks over to where he’s sitting on one of the sofas, a binder on his lap and a pencil in hand. Once she reaches Jonny, she slings her heavy bag off her shoulders and slumps down onto the sofa. As she expected, it isn’t the most comfortable. It’s too hard to really support her back in any way, and it’s not deep enough to help at all with any of that. However, it’s better than wandering the halls aimlessly, so she takes it.

“I’ve never seen you in here before,” Jonny grunts at her, staying quiet to avoid the glares of the librarian.

Pat shrugs. “Usually I spend this hour with my friend, but she’s out sick today. I just kinda ended up here, I guess.”

Jonny nods, so obviously her answer was good enough for him. “We should go somewhere else,” he says, leaning over to whisper in Pat’s ear. “The librarians are too cranky to allow much talking in here.”

Pat shrugs, acquiescing. “Where to?”

“Just follow me,” he tells her as he stands up, slinging his bag over one shoulder, and Pat really doesn’t have another choice. She would rather spend what’s left of the hour with her cranky bossy teammate than alone.

The two walk out of the library, and Pat follows Jonny as he walks up to the top floor of the building, rounding corners until they reach a small nook area that Pat didn’t even know existed, with a table and a couple of chairs to sit at. Jonny doesn’t look back once to make sure that she’s behind him, which kind of irks Pat, but she knows better than to really take it personally.

The two sit down, Pat first and then Jonny in the seat right next to her.

“So, Pat,” Jonny starts, getting a serious look on his face, even more serious than usual. Pat should’ve known he would interrogate her about something. “Is everything good with the move?”

Pat is confused, and she knows that she’s showing that on her face. “What do you mean?” she asks, because her family moved up here months ago, and she doesn’t understand why Jonny would be asking about this now.

Jonny shifts in his seat, looking a little uncomfortable. “Like, you had friends and stuff in Buffalo,” he states, not even bothering to make it a question. “So how is everything like that going here.” He shifts again in his seat, and his voice is getting progressively more monotone. Pat doesn’t really understand why Jonny is so uncomfortable talking about this, especially since he brought it up.

“I mean, obviously I miss my friends back in Buffalo, but it’s been cool to meet the girls here. Thank God we have email and cell phones and stuff, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to keep in touch with Gags.” Pat smiles a little fondly at that, thinking of the near weekly calls that the two have; Gags is determined to not lose touch with Pat and she couldn’t be more appreciative of his willingness to take an hour out of his schedule to talk to her.

Jonny frowns a little, and Pat isn’t sure why, but doesn’t get an opportunity to ask before Jonny is asking another question. “How about the coaches? They been treating you any better?”

Pat frowns at that, not really wanting to think about the douchebag coaching staff. They have gotten a little better in the sense that they’re willing to coach her some now, but it’s still a nominal change. She still gets crumbs compared to what the other guys get, and it stabs at Pat a little every time she sees the discrepancy in treatment. “I mean, it’s not as bad as it was this summer. I don’t know if you noticed, but then they basically refused to coach me, which sucked some major ass. I don’t know,” Pat says, trailing off at the end. She looks over and Jonny’s eyebrows are drawn together, and it isn’t much, but he almost looks concerned.

“Yeah, I noticed that a little,” he says, monotone as always. Pat’s kinda touched that he noticed the coaches’ treatment, and immediately feels silly about it. “It’s good though that’s getting better. If you ever need anything else, let me know.” Again, warmth floods up through her chest at her teammate’s words. Pat can’t help it; she’s beginning to feel fond about Jonny, and it’s not the same fondness she feels for Gags. That one is simple and pure, and Pat doesn’t know what it is, but she feels a little different about Jonny.

Later that night, when she’s thinking about it more, staring up at the dark ceiling of her room, Pat thinks that maybe it’s a little strange that her feelings for Gags and her feelings for Jonny are different. Pat has basically the same type of relationship with both boys. They’re both teammates, both linemates. She’s scored goals with both, and they both seem to care about her wellbeing on the team. They both look out for her. But Pat’s chest does a little something different when Jonny’s around. The warmth when he shows he cares is a slightly different flavor, and Pat isn’t sure what it means. She keeps turning it over and over in her half-asleep head until she finally drifts off, dreaming of hazy sun drenched afternoons with a tall dark figure with a bright smile, the sounds of ice beneath blades echoing in her head alongside laughter.

All Pat remembers when she wakes up is the feeling of warmth, and she quickly forgets about her questions surrounding her feelings around Jonny.

 

Pat walks out of her locker room, so absorbed in her own thoughts about the game she had just played that she doesn’t notice Jonny standing right outside the locker room door.

“Hey, Pat,” he says, and Pat jumps, startled.

“Fucking hell man, you fucking scared me. What are you doing anyways?” Pat says loudly.

“Oh, um, my parents wanted to meet you. They were really impressed with that goal you scored in the second.” Jonny looks awkward and unsure. He’s looking down at his feet and, holy shit, even blushing a little bit.

Pat smirks at him. “Oh yeah? They wanna meet the girl who makes their son look good?” she teases, and it gets Jonny to go back to his usual stick-up-the-ass glare. Pat laughs and adds, “Okay, okay. But I need to talk to my parents first, and put my bag down somewhere.”

Jonny grunts at her, but walks away towards a man and a woman with a boy standing with them, rocking on his feet and looking bored out of his mind. Pat guesses the trio is Jonny’s family, but she doesn’t get much more time to think about it before almost being knocked over by an overexcited Jackie Kane.

“Oh my God, Pat—”

“Language, Jackie,” her mother chastises, but Jackie pays her no attention.

“Patty, that goal was awesome. Like, wow! I watched a goal like that on TV the other day. I don’t remember who it was, but it looked just like you!” Jackie rambles, grinning, and Pat can’t do anything but laugh.

“Wow, Jacks, thanks,” she replies, a matching grin stretching her face. Pat looks up to see Erica smiling at her, and Jess obviously trying hard to look as sullen as possible.

“Come here, Jess,” Pat says playfully, dropping her bag to the ground and grabbing her second youngest sister in a hug.

Right on cue, a muffled “ew, Pat! You smell awful!” comes from Jess, and Pat just squeezes her sister tighter.

“Nice game Pat,” Pat’s dad tells her, his arm around her mom’s waist. Pat lets go of Jess and straightens up to talk to her father.

“Thanks, Dad,” she says simply, because she really doesn’t want to get into the dissection of every second of her play yet.

“You looked great out there, honey,” her mom tells her, a soft smile on her face. Pat smiles back, and just as she’s about to reply, another voice begins talking.

“Are you Mr. and Mrs. Kane?” an accented female voice asks from just behind Pat, and she turns to see who she presumes to be Jonny’s family. Indeed, they are accompanied by Pat’s linemate, who is looking embarrassed and a bit unsure.

“Yes, we are. And you are?” Pat’s dad responds, still sounding a bit gruff. Pat realizes suddenly that her father and Jonny would probably get along great, with how much they both like to tell her everything that’s wrong with her game. She physically shakes the nightmarish thoughts away and focuses on the parent’s conversation.

“We’re Jonathan’s parents. We just wanted to say how amazing your daughter has been playing. I know Jonathan has enjoyed playing with her, and we hope she’s been enjoying playing with him as well. They really do make an amazing team.” Mrs. Toews is smiling softly, and she sounds genuine.

Pat breaks in there, because honestly, if anyone should say how much or how little she likes playing with Jonny, shouldn’t it be her?

“Yeah, Jonny’s great to play with. We work really well together, even if we don’t always agree on the best way to play the game.” She frowns a bit at Jonny then, because he needs to stop instigating shouting matches about the best way to fucking pass the puck or move into the offensive zone. Pat knows, okay. She fucking knows how to play hockey.

“Well that’s good,” Jonny’s dad says, and he chuckles a bit before continuing. “Lord knows he can be hard to get along with sometimes.” Jonny yelps in dissent, but Pat just laughs.

“Yeah, sometimes. But it’s cool, the hockey is definitely worth it.” She smiles then at Jonny, who looks a little less ruffled at the complement.

“Well, Patricia, right?” Jonny’s mom asks, and Pat nods. “Patricia, you are a wonderful hockey player, and we are very excited to have you on the team this year. I think you and Jonathan will take this team places.” She smiles at Pat, exuding warmth.

“Okay then, I think we need to head out,” Pat’s dad says, effectively cutting off conversation. “It was good talking to you all.”

The parents shake hands once more, and Pat is unexpectedly swept into a hug by Jonny’s mom. When she’s released, Jonny sidles up to her, looking sheepish.

“Sorry about them,” he says, sounding genuinely apologetic. “They’re a bit much sometimes.”

“Hey, it’s fine. They seem really nice.” Pat smiles up at her line mate, and he scoffs and rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who lives with them.” Pat laughs, big and genuine and just shakes her head at the strange look Erica gives her.

Pat’s mom gives her a look that says to wrap it up, so Pat says her farewells before heaving her hockey bag up and walking out of the rink with the rest of her family flanking her.

The rest of the day is a good, and Pat can’t stop thinking about what Mrs. Toews had said.

“We are very excited to have you on the team this year.”

Pat plays it over and over in her head, relishing it the way one would stroke a soft blanket again and again to keep enjoying the warmth it brings. That comment is exactly what Pat needs, and it makes her feel a million times better to know that she has parents, other than her own, who want her there.

 

“Bye, Jonny!” Pat says, calling out to the figure walking into the dark parking lot. Just at that moment, the rink entrance opens and Pat whirls around, seeing Sharpy. She doesn’t waste a moment in chewing him out for taking so long in the showers.

“What the fuck where you doing in there?” she asks teasingly. “Did you fucking fall down and hurt yourself like an old fucking man or something? Did your hair need even more attention than fucking usual? Because I didn’t know that was fuckin’ possible. It’s fuckin’ cold out here.”

It is cold. The air has a bite to it that wasn’t there just a few weeks ago, and now that it’s starting to get dark by the time practice is over, it’s even colder. Pat is wearing a sweatshirt from her old school, and she has her arms wrapped around herself to try to stay just a little bit warmer.

“Oh whatever,” the older boy retorts. “It’s not like you minded, talking to Toes. What the fuck happened between you two anyway? This summer you were all cold towards him, and now you’re fuckin’ calling him Jonny. He fuckin’ hates it when people call him Jonny.”

Pat wrinkles her eyebrows, confused. If Jonny doesn’t like it when people call him that, then why did he tell her to call him that? When she voices her question to Sharpy, his face scrunches up, confusion written on his face. However, after a second, the confusion clears and he throws his head back and laughs.

“What is it?” Pat asks her friend, curious why he’s suddenly hysterically laughing. After he doesn’t answer, she asks again, voice raising in frustration. “Oh my God, Sharpy, stop fucking laughing! I don’t know what it is, but if you’re laughing at me, it isn’t fucking funny!” Pat is kind of embarrassed at how frantic her voice sounds, but not enough to actually make an effort to stop it. Sharpy just laughs even harder.

“Fine,” Pat says, putting as much determination and carelessness into her tone as possible. She picks up her hockey bag, which had been lying at her feet, and turns towards the parking lot, walking towards Sharpy’s car.

She hears him walking behind her, still snickering a little. Pat hears the beep signifying the doors have been unlocked, and she opens the trunk and throws her hockey bag in. Walking around to the passenger side of the car, Pat yanks the door open and throws herself into the car in a huff.

After Sharpy has arranged himself in the driver’s seat, he looks over at Pat and grins. “Oh, Peeks, don’t be sad. You’ll figure out what’s so funny soon.”

At that, he starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, paying no attention to the pouting sophomore in his passenger seat. However, after Sharpy turns up the music he had playing in the background and starts singing along to the God-awful country, Pat is distracted. Instead of being cranky about being out of a joke, probably one about her, she’s now complaining playfully about Sharpy’s ultra terrible taste in music, laughing when he tries to imitate the singer’s twang.

The rest of the ride back to Pat’s is light, and she almost forgets about the name debacle all together.

 

It’s the end of October, and Halloween is fast approaching. Pat’s friends are deep in discussion about what costume to wear to the Halloween Dance. Pat is unsure about dressing up; from what she can tell most girls dress in as little clothing as possible and the boys waste no time leering at their scantily clad classmates.

However, from what she’s heard, the dance will be fun. Her friends ramble on and on about the pros of going as this thing or that thing, wheedling aways at Pat’s defensives with promises of dancing and loud music and so so much fun.

“C’mon, Pat,” Megan whines in the middle of a conversation five days out from the dance. Her pleading face is framed by tight red curls that bounce when she moves her head. Megan is the adorable redhead, with smiling green eyes and freckles that dot her cheeks that make it impossible to dislike her from the first glance. She’s thin and petite, allowing her to keep a spot on the cheer squad. “It’ll be so much fun! And the rest of us already know what we’re gonna be, so it’s only you who has to choose now!”

“It’ll be so much fun, we promise,” Sophie adds in. She’s the unofficial leader of their little group, and has the most sway over group decisions. She looks the part too, straight, shiny blonde hair that makes Pat jealous every time she sees her friend, perfect makeup, and trendy outfits everyday of the week. Sophie never has a hair out of place, and she always has the perfect thing to say.

Pat is so sick of being nagged about the fucking dance that she finally gives in. “God, fine, Jesus. I’ll go to the fucking dance.”

Her friends cheer, Faith throwing an arm around Pat’s shoulders.

“So, then, what are you gonna go as?” the brunette asks, smirking a little as all the girls lean in, preparing to give their opinions.

Pat thinks for a second, and then grins. She has the perfect idea.

 

 

Pat walks out of Carrie’s room where she was changing for the dance. All of the girls are getting ready at Carrie’s, both because of the close proximity to the school and also because of her parents’ willingness to leave.

When she steps into the kitchen where everyone else is already dressed and ready, they turn and gasp.

“You didn’t!” Katie exclaims, her long brown hair flipped over her shoulder. Pat’s friend stands up from the table, her long dancer legs emphasized by the short skirt of her school girl costume.

Pat just laughs when the brunette comes over to tug at the Team USA shirt she’s wearing. Sophie is laughing from her spot at the kitchen island, her ornate princess updo shaking with each giggle. Sammy and Katie are predictably sitting next to each other in their Thing One and Thing Two outfits, both looking a little stunned that Pat would be wearing what she is. Pat knows that both of their families are very into hockey.

Pat steps further out into the kitchen and give the girls a spin. She’s wearing the tight shirt with ultra short volleyball shorts, and has topped it all off with a bunny tail and ears.

“I can’t believe you’re a fucking USA puck bunny,” Sammy says, sounding genuinely shocked. Pat just cracks up again. She loves that she’s gotten a chance to not only show her love for her country, but also to piss off a bunch of Canadians.

Carrie just snorts. “You better not let the hockey boys see you in that, especially Jonny Toews. He’ll be scandalized, might not let you step foot in the school again.”

Pat freezes for a second. She knew that the guys would probably see her at the dance. She didn’t even stop to consider what they would think about her costume though. She knows that her specific choice of outfit will probably draw a slew of chirps, but she hadn’t even considered the hoe-y aspect. Pat isn’t stupid, she knows what guys will think when they see her in her tight t-shirt with the push up bra and skintight short shorts. She knows, she isn’t dumb.

What she hadn’t thought about is what her teammates would think.

But it’s too late now to think about the potential whispers, the thoughts of “slut” going through the guys’ minds. It’s too late, Pat tells herself. Just focus on something else, she reminds herself, right up until her group arrives at the doors of the dance.

After that her attention totally shifts. The music is so loud that Pat can hear it from the parking lot, and when she steps inside the gym the bass shakes her to her core. Yeah, Pat’s been to a high school dance before. Last year she and Gags and some of the other guys went to Homecoming together, but nothing besides that. This is totally different from Homecoming.

This is a dark gym, a DJ playing okay remixes of pop music. This is nine hundred kids standing so close together that in the middle of the cluster you would have to be touching someone on every side in order to fit. This is grinding and sweat and loud and hot.

Sophie smirks and yells over the music to their group. “Who wants to venture to the middle?”

Megan flushes, hesitant to venture in where she’ll be that close to so many roving male hands. Sammy and Faith also vote to stay on the outside, willing to dance but not willing to be pressed up against so many people.

Sophie then leads the way into the mass of people, and their group has to elbow their way through to get even a couple of feet away from the edge. For awhile the three of them stay there, moving to the music in the limited amount of space provided to them by the crowd and jumping to the beat when certain songs come on. After a bit, a guy Pat recognizes from her cardio class sidles up behind Sophie and puts his hands on her hips. Pat’s friend looks up at him and seemingly approves, because she starts grinding back against the boy.

Pat glances at Carrie, and she just shrugs. “Sophie’s so gorgeous, every dude wants to get with her,” the blonde shouts in Pat’s ear. “We kinda just let her do her thing.”

After a couple more songs, Pat sees Sophie with a different guy’s hands on her hips, grinding to the beat of the music. Pat just raises her eyebrows and keeps moving through the crowd. After a bit Carrie pairs up with a dude Pat has heard her saying good things about, and Pat is left alone. She stays near her friends for a couple of songs, but after a while gives up and starts elbowing her way through the crowd. She doesn’t really know what her goal is, but after a bit she ends up with a dude at her back, hands on her hips, and a voice in her ear.

“USA, huh?” the guy asks, and when Pat turns around she sees a tall blonde with douchy hair and a tight batman shirt. Pat sees why Sophie might like this; it’s fun to know that a guy is attracted to her, and the dude is attractive and stranger enough for Pat to be willing. She gets kinda into it, and two or three songs go by before the dude is suddenly shoved away from Pat.

“What the fuck man?” Batman shouts, obviously angry that his grinding was interrupted. Pat spins around, not really sure what to expect. What she definitely wasn’t expecting to see was Jonny standing there facing Batman with a furious look on his face. Pat is reeling; she assumes her teammate pushed the dude away from her, but she isn’t sure why. Why would he care what she’s doing at a dance?

“Jonny, what the fuck?” she shouts, struggling to be heard over the pounding music.

Her friend just looks at her sternly, laser eyes in full effect. “Go find your friends, Kaner,” he growls, and Pat can hear him despite no obvious effort to raise his voice. It’s infuriating how condescending he is, how little concern he has for what she wants.

“Who are you, Toews, her babysitter?” Batman shouts, anger reverberating in every word. People around them are starting to give them glances, obviously interested in the show that Jonny has put on.

Pat steps forward, getting into her teammate’s face. “It’s none of your fucking business what I do, as long as it doesn’t affect hockey. I don’t give a shit about what you think I should be doing with my body, so you fucking leave me alone,” she shouts, trying to put every ounce of frustration into her voice.

Jonny steps back, and something soft and vulnerable flashes across his face, but it’s gone in an instant, replaced with his trademark stony faced glare. “Fine, Kaner, you fucking do what you want. But don’t expect me to come running when you have another issue you need me to solve for you.” At that he turns away, shoving his way out through the crowd, gone in an instant.

Pat’s breath catches in her throat, and suddenly it’s hard to get air in her lungs in a way that has nothing to do with being pressed against nine hundred of her classmates. She looks up at Batman, who just stares down at her looking confused.

“What did you mean, if it doesn’t affect hockey?” he asks, and Pat just shakes her head.

“Sorry about him, he’s a real idiot. I— I’m gonna go,” she tells the boy that she had been dancing with just a minute ago. He shakes his head, looking exasperated, but turns away.

Pat shoves her way out through the crowd, catching a glance of Sharpy and Abby that she’s gonna have to wipe from her memory. Once she reaches the edge, it’s easy to find her friends. Megan, Sammy, and Faith are in a little circle just on the outside of the mass of people, and Pat sidles up to them.

“Pat!” Sammy shouts, and grabs onto her shoulder. “How was the middle? How many guys?” she asks teasingly.

“Good,” Pat shouts back. “Listen, I’m gonna head home.”

“What? Why?!” Faith asks, sounding shocked. “Megan’s supposed to be the first to tap out!”

“I’m just not feeling so good all of a sudden,” Pat tells her friends, and they frown but nod in understanding.

“That sucks, hope you feel better!” Megan shouts into Pat’s ear, and Pat smiles in thanks.

“Well, I’ll see you guys later,” she says in farewell, and walks out of the gym. Once she reaches the outside of the building, Pat pulls out her cell phone to call her mom to ask for a ride. Her mom doesn’t ask any questions, which Pat appreciates, just telling her she’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Pat sits on the curb of the drop off lane to wait, pulling off her bunny ears to fiddle with.

However, after only a couple of minutes, Pat sees someone sit down next to her in the corner of her eye.

“Tazer seems pretty pissed about Mason and you,” Seabs says, his voice soft. “What happened?”

Pat turns to face the older boy and when she sees no sign of accusation on his face, turns back to face the school parking lot. “I don’t even know, honestly. Like, I was just grinding on the dude and then suddenly he gets shoved away from me. I turn around and there Jonny is, all angry and laser eyed, telling me what to do like he’s my dad or something. Why the fuck does he even care what I do?”

Seabs sighs. “Kaner, I’m not in his head, and I know he’s kinda crazy. But he just wants to make sure you’re making good choices, ones you won’t regret. And what you told me doesn’t explain all of the anger either.”

“Ok, fine, I shouted at him,” Pat says, frustrated that Seabs was able to see through her like that. “I told him that it’s none of his business what I do outside of hockey, and that I don’t give a shit what he thinks anyway. And then… he, well…” Pat looks over at Seabs, who now has his head in his hands, fingers rubbing at his temples.

“Kaner, you can’t tell him shit like that,” Seabs sounds tired, and Pat doesn’t blame him. “He loves his teammates, even though it’s just high school hockey. He cares about us in a way that I don’t fully understand, and I hang out with him all the fucking time. You telling him you don’t care about him was like punching him in the gut, straight up.”

Pat just looks down at the pavement, ashamed because she knows Seabs is right. Even after only a couple of months playing with Jonny, she knows he cares about hockey more than anything else, and that extends to his teammates.

“You gotta talk to him about this before the game on Sunday Kaner, you just have to. You guys are amazing on the ice together, even if you won’t stop fucking screaming at each other on the bench,” Seabs tells Pat, going into full-on captain mode. “Don’t let this fuck up your game, but definitely don’t let it fuck up your friendship.”

“Is someone coming to get you?” Seabs asks, changing the subject.

“Yeah, my mom. She’ll be here in a couple of minutes.”

“Ok then. I’m gonna run back inside, Duncs will be pissed if he can’t find me. Good luck with Tazer.” At that, her captain stands up, turns towards the school building, and walks back inside.

Pat sits on the curb for another ten minutes, probably. It’s already started to get cold outside, and without sun the temperature is biting. Pat wraps her arms around herself to stay warm, and she starts shivering just as her mother’s SUV pulls up. She hops up from the curb and climbs in the car.

The whole ride home is thankfully quiet; Pat doesn’t want to answer any questions about why she’s bailed so early. Maybe she’ll talk to Erica about it once she gets back from the dance; Pat doesn’t know. Right now she just curls up in her bed, not even bothering to wipe off her makeup, and thinks about Jonny’s threat.

“But don’t expect me to come running” plays over and over in Pat’s head. She hadn’t even thought about how much she needs her linemate’s help when it comes to team issues, but she does. If Pat has seriously pissed her friend off, what will the ramifications be for her position on the team?

Pat lays awake for a while thinking about it, not even bothering to keep a light on or pretend to do anything. She just stares at the ceiling of her room playing scenario after scenario over in her head, each worse than the one before. Suddenly she’s back at the night before the first morning practice of the summer, unable to do anything but play worst case situations over in her head until the heavy bubble of anxiety feels like it’s going to crush her. Her lungs feel constricted, as if something heavy has been placed on her chest.

Finally Pat hears the front door open and close, the mumbling sound of her mother talking to Erica. Pat tracks her sisters footsteps as they walk down the hallway to the staircase, then climbs up, up, up. At last comes the rapping of her sister’s knock at the door.

“Pat, you good in there?” she asks, and after a moment of silence, she cracks the door open to peek inside Pat’s room. After seeing Pat’s position, curled up in bed on top of the covers, her sister steps inside the room. “Oh Pat,” she sighs, and walks over to lie down behind Pat on the bed.

Instead of trying to talk Pat out of her anxiety spiral, Erica just lays a hand on her back. They lay like that for a while, long after Pat has gotten a hold of her wild imagination, long after she has settled into calm deep breaths. Finally, when Pat has started to drift off, Erica makes her move so she can get under the covers.

“Thanks,” Pat mumbles sleepily, and Erica gives her a quick kiss on the head before leaving the room.

 

The next morning sucks. Pat gets out of bed at ten, late even for a weekend. Her breakfast is a blur, and she’s unable to really focus on anything until her cup of coffee kicks in. After that, however, she starts to remember with more clarity what happened with Jonny and what had been an uneasy feeling in her stomach turns into all out nausea.

Not only did Jonny threaten to stop supporting her, stop helping her, but now the entire team probably knows exactly what Pat was doing with that dude last night. The last thing Pat needs at this point is a reputation for being a slut, and that’s exactly what could happen if the story is told the wrong way.

But Seabs is right; Pat needs to talk to Jonny today, especially since they’re playing on the same line right now. She can’t risk hockey just for some dumb thing that happened at a school dance, she just can’t. Hockey is the most important.

To: J Toews

From: P Kane

Hey dude, pick me up 4 timmie’s?

Pat sets her phone down, figuring she would be waiting for at least a couple of minutes. Toews isn’t great about checking his phone, or leaving the ringer on. However, it’s barely been thirty seconds before her phone buzzes, signifying a new text.

To: P Kane

From: J Toews

4 sure. See u in 15

And… well… That’s that, Pat guesses. She was kind of hoping, deep down, that Jonny would be busy or say no or not look at his phone, because sometimes it’s easier not to face issues.

But now she’s going to have to, though honestly Jonny will probably bring it up first, all gruff and cranky and Jonny.

Pat quickly dresses, only bothering to pull her hair up messily and throw on some deodorant. Jonny’s seen her look worse. It’s been almost exactly fifteen minutes when she hears the sound of a car pulling up front and calls out to her mom to let her know where she’s going.

“Good luck, Pat!” comes Erica’s voice from upstairs, and Pat has to grin at that. She really does love her sisters.

Pat yanks open the front door and rushes to Jonny’s car, circling around to get in the passenger side.

“Hey Kaner,” Jonny says, monotone and bored sounding as Pat clips in her seatbelt.

“Hey,” she says back, trying to keep her voice monotone and under control, just like his.

The ride to Timmie’s is awkward, the only sound is the awful country music Jonny has playing on his car speakers. When they pull into the parking lot, Pat is quick to get out of the car, but stops to wait for her companion. She might be feeling awkward around Jonny right now, but that doesn’t mean that all of her manners have gone out the window.

Once Jonny meets her at the front of his car, they walk across the parking lot into the store. After getting their drinks and donuts, the two find a small two person table tucked into the corner furthest away from the door.

Pat takes a sip of her coffee and sighs, enjoying the warmth rushing through her body. When she looks up at her companion, she sees him smiling a little bit, watching her, before he sees her looking and quickly casts his eyes in another direction.

Pat huffs out a small breathe after she’s taken another couple sips of her coffee. Jonny hasn’t made any move to talk about what happened the previous night, not even an attempt at small talk. Pat realizes that she’s going to have to take it upon herself to start the conversation, and while she isn’t surprised, she’s still a little bit disjointed.

“Listen, Jonny, I’m sorry about what happened last night,” Pat says, trying to sound apologetic and remorseful but almost positive she’s failed. Jonny’s face doesn’t change at all though, so Pat just continues on. “I’m not really sure what happened at first, but I do know that I overreacted. So… Sorry I guess.” Pat tries a small smile to lighten the mood, but her friend’s face stays as blank as before.

There’s a moment of silence, one Pat is sure will end with Jonny rejecting her apology. However, when he speaks it’s while looking down at his donut, a pained expression on his face and apologetic words on his lips.

“Sorry I got in the middle of your business, that was real shitty of me. I should’ve known better, and then I took your bait and was really mean.” Jonny couldn’t look more uncomfortable, and Pat isn’t sure why. Pat takes it upon herself to try to lighten the mood, so she smiles at her friend gently.

“Dude, it’s totally fine. We both fucked up. Let’s just move on, yeah?” Pat’s trying to make this as easy as possible, because Seabs was right. They need to get along to play right. Maybe that’s not the right motivation to want to make up with Jonny, but whatever, that’s the one she has.

The rest of their outing is nice. They laugh about their teammates antics, and Jonny tells a story about Sharpy almost full on hitting a dude for simply pushing past Abby to get through the crowd. Pat enjoys it, actually, and the awkwardness of the beginning is lost in the pleasantry of the rest of their chatter.

When they finish up at Timmie’s, Jonny takes Pat home, and they argue about country music the entire way to Pat’s. When she gets out of the car, she’s smiling so big that Erica asks her if she’s okay when she walks in the kitchen. Pat just laughs and brushes her sister off, because yeah, she’s feeling pretty good.

 

 

“Hey everyone,” Seabs says, calling everyone’s attention to him while they’re at a team dinner.

It’s snowing lightly outside, and Pat is sure the flakes are huge and fluffy with how cold it’s been the past week. Everyone has been waiting for it to snow; it’s been overcast and freezing and Pat has been hoping that there would be some precipitation to break up the bleakness.

It’s a couple days from Christmas; it’s on a Tuesday this year, so they won’t be having practice that Monday or Wednesday. This Friday is the last time the team will be seeing each other as a team before Christmas, so today is the day when they will be exchanging Secret Santa gifts.

It’s super silly, for a high school sports team to be exchanging Secret Santa gifts, but what the hell. Sharpy insisted on it and Abby helped organize it because she’s super helpful like that, and apparently the team has been doing it ever since the seniors were freshman. Pat’s heard Jonny grumbling about not continuing the tradition after Sharpy leaves, but she knows he will.

“Guys!” Seabs calls again, trying to get everyone to calm down. Once they do, helped along by a glare from Duncs, Seabs starts talking again. “Okay, so, Sharpy’s already distributed all the gifts, and so you guys can just like open them now I guess, I don’t fuckin’ know. There isn’t really any specific formula to this, you just kinda open your shit and then fuckin’ guess who gave it to you and if you’re right you’re the fuckin’ best or whatever.” Seabs looks so uncomfortable describing how to do the Secret Santa that Pat kind of pities him, and Sharpy must too because he leans forward and starts talking.

“Yeah, Seabs basically got it. Just fuckin’ rip that shit open, be fuckin’ awed at the high quality nature of your under twenty dollar gift, and then fuckin’ guess who was kind and thoughtful enough to pick that shit out for you.” Sharpy looks so thrilled about this, and his bright red Rudolph sweater isn’t doing him any favors when in comes to not looking like an overenthusiastic weirdo.

(Also it’s stupidly unfair that Sharpy can pull off that hideously atrocious sweater, like, seriously. It has a reindeer on it. How is he even that handsome? Pat swears everyone around the table is glaring at him and the overly festive red atrocity he’s making look damn good.)

The whole team sits around the table awkwardly, not sure if they’re allowed to start yet or if Sharpy has more to say. He looks around at everyone after a couple seconds, incredulous.

“You fuckin’ idiots, open your goddamn presents.”

The volume of their table increases dramatically then, everyone reaching around to grab their gifts and unwrapping them violently and as fast as possible. Pat spots Shawsy viciously ripping open the Santa wrapping paper she so lovingly covered his new Canada water bottle with and sighs to herself before reaching under her seat to retrieve her own gift.

It’s in a gift bag decorated with glittery gold snowflakes whose sparkles are already getting all over Pat’s sweatpants. There’s some tissue paper covering the contents of the bag, but it was obviously put in at the last minute because of its bright orange and not at all festive color. She pulls out the paper and reaches into the bag, pulling out a massive navy blue sweatshirt with River Heights’ eagle logo and the name of the school emblazoned in white on the front. When she turn it around to look at the back, she finds the fight song written out, and she knows this gift went way over the twenty dollar limit.

It’s probably about the same size as her old Knights sweatshirt, the one she wears to every practice and that hangs off of her and more than covers her fingertips. That one is worn and soft, and this sweatshirt is obviously meant to replace it.

Pat smiles to herself. She knows it’s ridiculous, but she can’t help but feel that this gift for a stupid Secret Santa is something more, a sign of how she’s now truly one of them. She knows that whoever got her this gift is probably just going to chirp her about her Knights sweatshirt, but still.

Pat pulls off her green Orchard Park Knights hoodie and replaces it with her new one. The fabric on the inside is warm and soft, and a worn sweatshirt is awesome, but a brand new one is almost better. She then turns to Jonny, who’s sitting next to her, and listens to his bitching about the health foods cookbook he received despite knowing that the boy will most certainly be using it in the privacy of his own home.

A couple more minutes pass before Seabs stands up and asks if everyone is done opening their gifts. At the confirmation of this, everyone goes around the table and says who they bought for. Saader’s mischievous smile as he confirms that, yes, he did indeed get Sharpy matching couples “wifey” and “hubby” shirts for him and Abby is fucking hilarious.

When they get to Sharpy, he looks Pat right in the eye. “I got Peeks,” he says, face honest. “I made sure she’s truly a part of the team. We can’t have her showing up with another school’s colors anymore.”

Shawsy smiles at her. “It looks good on you, Kaner.”

Pat shifts awkwardly in her seat, not sure what to say into the terribly earnest atmosphere that has settled over the group. “Thanks, she says, voice small. “I’m, um… Maybe I’ll remember the fight song now?”

That breaks the vulnerable mood, and the whole group laughs and moves on to the next person.

The dinner ends a little while after the Secret Santa shit is done. The atmosphere is good, everyone’s relaxed and chill, enjoying the company of the team. Pat knows that she’s lucky to be on a team where everyone basically gets along, and it’s crazy nice to be in such a comfortable environment.

Pat’s phone buzzes, a call from her mom letting her knows she’s outside to pick Pat up. She needs to go early, having a flight to Buffalo to catch the next morning. She gathers her things, excusing herself from the table and saying her goodbyes before heading towards the door.

“Eh, Kaner,” Jonny says from behind her, grabbing her elbow to stop her for a second. “I have something for you.” He pulls out a big manila envelope from his bag, handing it to her with a smile. “I thought you might like this. My dad took it, and, well, I don’t fuckin’ know. I just thought you would like it.”

Pat smiles at her friend, a warmth in her stomach lighting up that she can’t quite put a name to. “Thanks, Jonny,” she says. “Listen, I gotta go. I’ll see you in January.” She turns then, grabbing her hockey bag and heading out of the restaurant and out to her mom’s car.

 

Later that night, once Pat has finally gotten home and up into her room away from the oohing and ahhing of her sisters over her new hoodie, she sits on her bed and pulls out Jonny’s envelope.

She undoes the fastener and pulls out a large picture.

It’s a fucking awesome photo, printed on actual nice photo paper. It’s big and colorful and has so much energy. It’s a picture of Pat and Jonny yelling at each other after a goal, both of their faces lit up in joy apparent even through their cages. There’s some blurriness around their forms, giving away their rush towards each other, and the picture brings Pat right back to a celly with her linemate. She can’t even remember what game or what goal this picture was from, but it still holds memories. It reminds her of winning and teamwork and perfectly timed rushes towards the opposing goal. It reminds her of the warmth of being wrapped up in a celly, envelopes by the feeling of team and success and belonging.

She fucking loves it.


	3. winter

The night before the flight to Buffalo, Pat can’t sleep. It isn’t the kind of sleeplessness that comes with anxiety though, not at all. This is the sleeplessness of excitement, the one that little kids get on Christmas Eve, and the one that has Pat in its grasp right now.

Pat can hardly fucking wait to be on an airplane back home, because yeah, she’s learning to love Winnipeg, but Buffalo will always, always be home. She finally drifts off to sleep, dreaming the whole night of cold New York winters and skating at her local rink and the comfort and warmth of her grandparents’ house.

Pat is woken the next morning by a far too happy Jackie, pouncing on her bed and jostling Pat in her warm cocoon. Pat looks over at her alarm clock and sees that it’s only just past six in the morning, which is far too early to have a little sister bouncing on her bed excitedly.

“Patty, Patty! Wake up! We need to leave soon!” her sister exclaims, a huge grin on her face. Pat rubs her face, groggy and not quite sure what’s going on. However, after a couple more seconds of Jackie jumping on her bed, relentlessly jostling Pat, she realizes what today is. What she’s doing today.

Buffalo.

Pat sits up in bed and grins up at her little sister. “You excited?” Pat asks rhetorically.

“Soooo excited!” Jackie says beaming, before their mother calls up the stairs.

“Jackie, let your sister get ready!” Jackie jumps off the bed.

“Don’t make us late!” she calls over her shoulder as she bounces down the stairway. Pat smiles to herself fondly. She loves her family so so much, especially her sisters.

Getting out of the house is a blur, and so is the drive to the airport. All Pat can feel is the thrum of excitement reverberating around her family. Jackie can’t stop moving, which would be annoying any other time, but now Pat honestly couldn’t care any less. All four of them, Pat and her sisters, keep giggling at the smallest things, and the giddiness in the car is palpable. Usually all four of them wouldn’t be this awake this early in the morning, but today they can’t help it.

The airport calms everyone’s good moods, and getting through security is a huge hassle. Pat’s parents keep muttering, obviously stressed and frustrated about their tight timetable. Their plane boards at nine, and the seconds tick closer and closer and the Kane family is still stuck in line.

However, after briskly walking to the gate, they make it with time to sit for a bit and organize themselves. Pat’s parents have bought two seats away from everyone else, and Pat and Erica immediately claim those for themselves. Pat’s father looks like he’s about to argue, but her mom lays a hand on his arm, placating, and smiles at her two oldest girls.

“Go ahead, you two. Get some time to yourselves, you’ll be spending a lot of time with your sisters once we get there.”

Pat and Erica look at each other and shrug. Really, if being in Buffalo with their family and friends means hanging out with Jess and Jackie most of the time, they can accept that.

Just then, a voice comes over the intercoms telling them to line up and board the plane. Everyone shuffles on, and Pat and Erica find their seats towards the front of the plane. They settle into their seats after heaving their bags into the overhead compartment. Once seated, the two sisters look at each other and grin.

“Erica,” Pat says, her face starting to hurt a little bit from all the smiling she’s been doing today.

“Pat,” Erica replies, grin stretching wider.

“We’re going home.”

 

The moment she walks into her grandparents’ house, Pat feels at home. Everything is still the same as it has been her entire childhood: the scent of her grandmother’s perfume and the laundry detergent they’ve used since forever, the positioning of the living room with its big ugly leather sofa, the one that Pat has napped on countless times. The kitchen is still small and cramped and the pictures of Pat and her sisters from when they were babies still hang in the hall.

All four of the Kane girls are wrapped up in big hugs as soon as they step over the threshold, their grandparents making all the usual comments about how much they’ve grown and how it’s been so hard with them in Winnipeg.

It’s comfortable, easy, being here. Pat and her grandfather have always got along super well, and so the two gravitate towards each other right away.

Pat talks to her grandfather for hours, walking their old Lab around the neighborhood, hands buried deep inside coat pockets to protect them from the bitingly cold air. She’s always been the closest to her grandfather out of any of her extended family, closer to him than maybe her own parents at times. Even if the two don’t get to see each other a lot anymore, Pat finds herself still able to talk to her grandpa, easy conversation about nearly anything flowing between them.

Pat hasn’t seen him since Thanksgiving when her family made the same trip down to Buffalo, and so much has happened since then, both with hockey and with her social life and school.

“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying hockey at your new school.” Pat’s grandpa smiles at her softly, and Pat feels a little bit guilty about not telling him the bad shit that’s been happening. Sure, the team is great, but the coaches still aren’t… ideal. She looks down at where her hands are resting on the kitchen counter and curls into herself, internally debating whether or not to tell her grandfather what’s been happening.

“Well…” Pat starts, dragging out the word in a desperate attempt to get more time to figure out what she wants to say. Her grandpa’s face shifts, his eyebrows crease together, but he still looks patient and ready to listen. “Okay, so the thing is…” Pat trails off again, not really sure how she wants to tell this story. She hasn’t said anything about the coaching situation to her parents or girl friends at school, and has only barely mentioned it to any of the boys. Erica knows, of course, and Gags. But not really anyone else.

Pat looks up at her grandfather. His face is still kind, and she knows he won’t judge her or make her feel shitty about it.

So she tells him. Pat tells her grandfather about the coaching, how they almost never coach her anymore, not even to shout all that she’s doing wrong across the ice. She tells them about how she had to enlist help from the boys to get to skate during games, and how she’s had to fight tooth and nail to keep her spot. Pat looks at her feet the whole time, studying the carpet under her shoes. She doesn’t want to look up and see her grandpa’s reaction in fear that it’s negative or he blames her like her father did.

After she’s done, Pat keeps staring at her feet, waiting for a response. She keeps staring, hoping that her grandpa will just say something, anything to break the silence.

Finally he sighs, big and deep and contemplative rather than frustrated.

“Patty, I know you. You aren't the kind of girl who lets other people dictate what your life is going to be like. You're the kind of girl who takes charge and plows forward and makes her own way. I don't want you to get caught up with this one setback, because that's all it is. It's just one setback."

His voice is comforting, calm and reassuring in a way that warms Pat to her bones. It’s always been this way with her grandpa, and she feels silly for being nervous to tell him about the coaches. She looks up at him tentatively. “Yeah?” she asks, still slightly unsure.

Her grandpa smiles at her gently, reaching across the sofa to ruffle her hair playfully. “Of course, Pat, you’re the baby that would up and disappear to get what she wanted, giving your poor grandmother a workout every time she would watch you, kept busy chasing you.”

Pat laughs, because yeah, she’s always been pretty determined to get her way.

“Just use that fire, Pat. You know it’s there, I know it’s there. Use it. Don’t let some coaches get in the way of your dreams.”

 

Erica and Pat are lounging on their grandparents’ sofa despite being really too big to lay side by side like this anymore. They’re talking about what they’re going to do with the last weekend of winter break, which they will be spending in Winnipeg.

“Yeah, no, I have plans to go out with some of the guys when we get back,” Pat tells her sister excitedly. “Jonny said he’s only going ’cause I promised to buy him lunch next week, but he’s totally full of it. He would’ve gone with me anyways,” Pat’s smiling wide, thinking about how stupid Jonny is for ever thinking he could trick her. “Honestly, I don’t know why he tries it. He can never fool me.”

Pat wait for a response for Erica, and after a couple seconds pass with no response, she looks over and sees the strange look on her sister’s face. It looks a little strained and Pat’s not sure why her sister looks like that.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, and Erica sighs at her.

“I keep asking you if you like Jonny, with how much you talk about him and how you talk about him, and you always say no. Are you sure about that?” Erica sounds suspicious, like no matter what Pat says to deny liking her teammate she won’t believe her.

“I don’t, Erica, I’ve told you this like a million times. I just talk about the guys a lot, and Jonny happens to be one of the guys.” Pat knows she sounds exasperated, but seriously, they’ve had this conversation a million times. She sits up, disrupting her and Erica’s precarious positioning on the sofa, and Erica grunts at her, annoyed.

Pat’s sister sits up as well, looking over at her with concern. “Listen, Pat, I obviously can’t speak for you and your emotions. But also? I’ve known you for like basically your whole life, and this is kinda how you act when you like a guy. I don’t want to hurt your feelings or make you annoyed but… I just want you to think about it.”

Erica truly sounds like she means it, and this is different than the other times she’s brought Jonny up. Before it was teasing, little pokes at Pat to make her squirm and scowl. But now she sounds like she just wants Pat to know what she wants, to know how she feels.

Pat is pretty sure she doesn’t like Jonny, but she hasn’t really thought about it, if she’s being honest. She hasn’t thought about it and she doesn’t want to allow herself to like a teammate like that, it would complicate an already complicated situation. “I’ll think about it,” Pat promises her sister, voice quiet and soft.

Erica puts an arm around her waist, pulling her into a side hug. “I know it would suck if you like him, with the whole team thing. But I know you, Pat, you’re strong.”

 

Pat’s laying in bed later that night, thinking about it just like she promised her sister she would do.

She thinks about Jonny, thinks about the wide grin he gets when they score and the constipated look he gets when he’s been forced to go out and do something he deems stupid. She thinks about his stupid over-gelled hair and how he usually keeps his face and voice blank but how sometimes little pieces of what he’s feeling seep in and give his sensitivity away. Pat thinks about Jonny skating sprints at practice, his face getting flushed from exertion and his long legs pushing him across the ice in large powerful strides. She thinks about his chirping and how he always goes to Seabs for advice when he isn’t sure what to do, and how everyone already knows he’ll be captain next year because he basically is a captain already.

And as she pictures her friend in her mind, Pat realizes that maybe she pays too much attention to Jonny. She realizes that maybe, just maybe, that warm glow she feels in her chest and how she always wants to sit next to Jonny on the bus or stand with him at practice isn’t just buddies. She realizes that maybe Erica was right all along.

It makes Pat’s chest seize up, it makes her feel a little bit sick and so, so nervous. She doesn't know how she’s going to keep all this under control, she doesn’t know how she’s going to keep her crush from getting in the way of hockey.

Pat doesn’t know what the fuck she’s gotten herself into.

 

Pat wakes up the next morning and trudges down the stairs to breakfast, the smell of bacon and pancakes wafting up the stairs. Her sisters are all already awake, so she plops into the seat at the kitchen island they left for her. Her grandma is at the stove cooking and her grandpa and parents are nowhere to be seen, so Pat lays her head on the counter and groans.

“You okay Pat?” Jackie asks, concerned.

Pat turns her head to the side and looks at Erica. “You were right,” she says morosely. “You were right, you were so, so right.”

Erica cackles.

 

They’re driving to lunch on a weekend, headed to meet some of the guys for a quick meal. It’s fucking freezing outside, the late January air frigid, and it’s not helped by the wind and overcast sky. Pat thinks she saw that it’s supposed to snow tonight on the TV this morning, and all signs point to that happening.

Pat is cold. She knows that she’s from Buffalo and that she’s living in Canada and that she plays hockey, but fucking honestly, she gets cold. And today it’s freezing, and Jonny’s car’s heat is broken, and Pat is so, so, so cold.

“Are you cold?” Jonny asks Pat, concern clear in his voice. He looks at her from the driver’s seat, his brows drawn together. Pat thought she wasn’t shivering too obviously; her jaw is clenched to make sure her teeth don’t chatter, and her hands are clenched into fists and stuffed between her legs to try to keep them warm.

Unfortunately for Pat and her attempts to keep her discomfort on the down low, her body decides then is the right time to shiver violently. She feels her cheeks warm and she looks down at her lap, hoping her friend won’t tease her for being weak or something. However, when she hears the sound of rustling fabric, she looks back up to see Jonny shifting to pull off the jacket he has on top of his hoodie.

“Here,” he says once he’s wrestled it off, and hands it to Pat. Pat’s cheeks warm even further, and she’s barely able to utter out a small “thanks” while she pulls on the jacket, smiling softly the entire time.

For the rest of their lunch outing, all Pat can really think about is how nice it feels to be surrounded by Jonny. Not only does she get to be with him, but she also gets to wear his scent and warmth around her body. Whenever Jonny looks away, she sneaks a sniff into the collar of the the jacket, reveling in the smell of his terrible cologne, Old Spice deodorant, and the slight musk that comes with teenage boy.

The best part, however, is how the garment is too big for Pat so it hangs off her noticeably. The sleeves are far too long for Pat’s arms so they reach well past her wrists, and the hem goes down past her butt. Normally Pat doesn’t like to be reminded how much bigger most of her teammates are than her measly five five, but in this case she loves it. For some reason, the fact that Jonny is bigger than her makes her feel warm in ways she didn’t even know possible. It makes her feel protected and safe when he’s towering over her, and the feeling of wearing his jacket is that times a hundred. She can’t imagine what it would feel like to look down and see their hands intertwined, his so much bigger than hers. She wants to know how it would feel to have his arm around her shoulders or waist, or to be wrapped in his arms.

Pat knows it’s silly; Gags has lent her clothes before, and she never loved it as much as she does this. But, she guesses, she never had a ridiculous embarrassing crush on Gags.

Before she can embarrass herself by losing herself in her fantastical thoughts, she forces her attention back on her teammate. And really, just the thought of Jonny being her teammate is more than enough to banish any stray thoughts of being close to him from her mind for the remainder of the period.

 

Pat lays in bed, thoughts turning over and over in her mind, each dragging the possibility of sleep away further from her.

Erica keeps telling her to just talk to Jonny, and every time Gags talks to her on the phone or sends her an email he mentions her teammate in some gross manner that suggests all sorts of sexual things because Gags is a dude and dudes just do that.

But the thing is, no matter how much her sister needles her about how stupid Jonny would be to not like her, Pat can’t help but draft a miles long list of everything unattractive or undesirable about herself.

And once the little self-doubting, flaw-finding seed is planted in her brain, Pat can’t stop thinking up every reason under the sun that a dude, especially Jonny, wouldn’t want to get with her.

She starts easy. Pat knows she isn’t the prettiest; her hair is over-dry from washing it too much and her forehead is always covered in acne from the sweat that builds up beneath her helmet. Now that school and hockey and friends take up most of her time, she rarely gets time or energy to do anything with her hair or put on makeup or even just have a basic skin care regime. Pat wears the same outfit to school most days: one of a handful of sweatshirts over a t-shirt and jeans, with the same pair of boots or sneakers every single day.

Pat knows she isn’t pretty.

She also knows that she’s strong and capable and can probably lift more than most of the dudes in the school, and she knows that straight dudes aren’t into a girl who could kick their ass. She knows that guys like girls who are thin and delicate, who are healthy but not too strong, who are toned but not muscular. She especially knows guys are into big boobs, and her barely A cups are certainly not that.

Pat isn’t girly. She’s far more focused on doing well in hockey than looking nice, and she hangs out with guys so often that she acts more like a dude than a girl most of the time.

All of that is just the stuff that would make most guys not into her, not even considering all the ways that she seems to infuriate Jonny. Yeah, they play beautiful hockey together, but they still shout themselves hoarse during a majority of intermissions, and it seems to Pat that he spends most of his time with her rolling his eyes at her overexcited tendencies. Even though he usually chooses to sit next to her during any strategy meetings and skates over next to her during practice, he complains constantly to Seabs about “what Kaner’s done now, Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

And, most of all, Pat’s team. She isn’t dumb, she knows that the guys think of her as just one of the guys. How could she break past that into girlfriend territory with Jonny? The zones for “one of the dudes” and “girlfriend” are so far apart they might as well be on different planets.

One time, one the phone with Gags, Pat tries explaining this.

“Gags, how do you see me?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“Wait, what do you mean?” he asks hesitantly and a bit confused.

“Like, the way you treat me. Do you treat me as, like, a female friend, or guy friend, or like…” she trails off.

Gags is quiet for a second before a crackly sigh comes through the speaker of Pat’s cell phone. “Fuck, yeah, okay, I see what you mean. I see you as like, one of the dudes or some shit. I for sure don’t treat you like I would just like a fuckin’ girl I know. Damnit, Kaner, you got me.”

“And all the guys treat me basically the way you do,” she tells him.

Gags sighs again before acquiescing. “Fuck, yeah okay.” Her friend takes another moment before speaking up again. “Although, to be totally fuckin’ honest, Kaner, are you really actually into the way that I treat you?” Pat scrunches up her face and makes a disgusted noise. Gags laughs and continues. “Exactly. So if you’re into this Toews dude, then that must mean that he treats you differently, right? More in a way that you would be into. So that means that there’s more of a chance that he’s into you, too. And then you guys can talk or whatever and then fuck and then you can stop pining at me.” Gags sounds far too satisfied for his own good, and Pat is honestly disgusted at the thought of her friend thinking about her (admittedly nonexistent) sex life.

“You’re fuckin’ gross, man,” she tells her friend, and he just laughs.

 

“You guys need to play hard tonight. Stamford is a great team, and they get far more funding for their hockey program with them being a private school. I need you all to stay focused on the game, and not get caught up in any funny business.”

The team is sitting in the main locker room, and Coach is lecturing them to get ready for their big game. Stamford High School is the River Heights rival, so expectations are high. It’s a home game this year, and River Heights apparently hasn’t won this game in six years. Everyone on the team wants to win, and wants to win badly. People are saying they have a chance this year, with their record, but Pat isn’t sure. She’s seen the game tape of Stamford playing; they’re super fucking good, especially for a high school team.

“If I see any excessive penalty minutes, I’m gonna kick your asses in practice tomorrow. This is a huge game for us, and I expect you to not screw it up. Pay attention to our weaknesses, and try to hide them the best you can. Follow the first line’s lead; if they keep close to a guy, I expect every line to cover that guy. Keep your heads up, and try to get them to screw up as much as possible. If that means getting them in the box, so be it. I want to see everyone playing their best today.”

At that, Coach walks out of the room. Usually the room would erupt with conversation right now, but everyone is serious about this game. They can hear the people in the stands, can hear the cheers already starting up even 10 minutes before puck drop.

Pat’s nervous, honestly. In Buffalo, her high school never really had a rival, at least not one that could compete with their hockey program. Sure, the football rivalry was a big deal, but not really the hockey one. She’s never played a regular season game that was this big a deal before.

After a couple more seconds of quiet, Seabs stands up to address the room.

“Okay guys, I know this is a big fuckin’ game. I know the expectations are high, and I know that everyone will be watching.”

“Damn, Seabs, nice job getting us to relax,” Sharpy chips, and the room lightens a little. The tension is partially broken, and Seabs smiles before continuing.

“Fuck off, Sharpy, I’m going somewhere with this. Give me a fuckin’ chance. Anyways, we all know the pressure for this game is high. But really, in the end, it’s just another fuckin’ game. It’s just another fuckin’ physical game, except this time we’re gonna fuckin’ go into it knowing it’ll be physical. We’re prepared, we can fuckin’ kick their asses.”

The team erupts into cheers, and Seabs grins. “And if they decide to be cunts and provoke us, we need to keep our calm. Don’t fuckin’ let them drag us down boys, don’t let them drag us down.”

And that’s that. After having successfully riled up the locker room, Seabs sits down in his place next to Duncs smirking. The guys are all talking energetically now, and all about how they’re gonna fuckin’ kick ass, or some variation of that. Pat’s starting to get excited too now, and though she isn’t super emotionally invested in this rivalry, she’s ready to kick some fuckin’ Stamford ass.

 

The second the puck drops, the game is intense. Both teams are playing hard, harder than they’ve played all season, probably. Both teams are getting more physical but no one really spend significant time in the box. Everyone is playing their best, and she and Jonny are on fire.

Pat puts up a goal in the first with an assist from Jonny, and Jonny fires a beautiful shot off a pass from Pat that is saved by the tip of the goalie’s glove. It’s like they’re sharing the same mind today; they barely have to communicate or look at each other to fire quick passes across the ice. Saader gets a great shot in at the end of the period, and the Stamford goalie is scowling beneath his helmet, no doubt pissed about being scored on by a girl and a freshman.

Unfortunately, their opponents are playing great as well. It’s exhausting honestly, and the defense and Crow are having a hell of a time containing their forwards. Stamford only gets a single goal though during the first period, so Pat and the guys feel great walking off the ice after the buzzer sounds.

In the locker room, Coach gives a short speech, reminding them to play clean and quickly mentioning their good defense and goals.. Seabs is still too caught up in his d-man mind meld with Duncs to really say anything, so Jonny stands up and says something.

“We were great out there the first period,” he says to the room, and Pat thinks he’s being awfully transparent in how much he wants to be captain. “Keep up the defense, Crow, you did awesome. We were really a team out there, so let’s do the same the next period.”

The team cheers, everyone psyched up for the rest of the game.

The team walks back onto the ice for the second period feeling confident, but Stamford seems to know that they need to catch up. They score quickly, quicker than they really should have. Pat sees Crow beating himself up in the net, and Seabs skates over to pat him on the back and say something in his ear. The rest of the period is fiercely played, with more far more shit talking and physicality than the first period. There are more penalty minutes racking up than the team can really afford, but Stamford’s minutes aren’t much better.. Pat plays clean, mostly because she can’t afford to play any other way.

The thing is, though, that Stamford seems to have seen that Pat is the weak link when it comes to checking and playing up against the boards. Pat simply can’t compete when big guys are hitting her hard, and there’s only so much avoiding and dodging she can do before her quads start to hurt from skating so much.

The second ends with a tied score, both team frustrated and wanting to pull ahead that one extra point. They get off the ice feeling slightly less confident than when they had finished the first, and Coach yells about penalty minutes and keeping on top of the game and paying attention.

The third period starts quickly, with Jonny winning the face off and passing to Pat right away. Sooner than she thought possible, a huge dude is pressing her into the boards, and she isn’t really sure how to get out of the situation. She passes blindly, hoping she doesn’t send the puck right onto the stick of a Stamford player. Luckily, when she emerges from underneath the fucking huge d-man, she sees Jonny with the puck, charging the net and firing a quick shot to upper glove side. The puck ricochets off the sidebar, the rebound quickly picked up a Stamford dman and passed up the ice to their forwards.

When Pat’s skating back to the bench, a Stamford defenseman skates past her roughly, slamming his shoulder into her’s and muttering into her ear.

“Fuckin’ cunt, go back to where you fucking belong, this is a man’s game.”

Pat’s breath catches in her throat, and she trips a bit over her skates. She feels stupid, because that’s probably exactly the response the guy was hoping for, and honestly she shouldn’t be surprised. Pat’s heard worse before, but just not really this year. Sexist insults on the ice have been where the Canadians have really exemplified their stereotypical politeness, but this team obviously is made up of a bunch of dickwads. She understands now why the rest of the guys hate these dudes so fuckin’ much.

Honestly, she knows she should be flattered. They wouldn’t be trying to fluster her if they weren’t threatened by her. Pat knows that the only reason people ever use her gender as a weapon is because they’re scared of the girl who’s a better hockey player than they are. But the thing is, Pat doesn’t really give a shit. She knows all of that deep down, but it still hurts when guys skate up next to her and mutter terrible things in her ear or when she overhears parents encouraging their sons’ horrible behavior.

She skates back to the bench and zones out, only snapping out of her haze when Coach yells at her to “get her ass on the ice, Kane.” The next shift is a haze, and Pat only vaguely remembers her play. She would be willing to bet it was lackluster, and even when she skates back to the bench she’s still stuck on the fucking comment from that one asshole.

When she sits down, Jonny plops down right next to her and nudges her in the side. “You good, Kaner? You seem a bit off.”

Pat shrugs and makes a noncommittal hum, because she really doesn’t need Jonny to be pissed at the kid. They’re tied, everyone needs to focus on playing their best, not holding grudges.

“I’m not a fucking idiot, Kaner, I know when you’re acting weird. Fucking tell me.” Pat doesn’t know why, but before she knows it, she’s opening her big fucking mouth and telling Jonny what happened.

“You see that d-man on the bench, number 17?” Pat looks at her teammate for an acknowledgment, and he nods. “Well, right after that first shift at the start of the period, when I was skating to the bench, he fuckin’ skated right into me and… well…”

“Fuckin’ spit it out, Kaner.”

“He called me a cunt. Told me to get off the ice, go back to where I belong. Said hockey’s a man’s game.” Pat waits, expecting her friend to blow up, but after a couple of seconds passes and there’s no massive reaction, she turns to Jonny to try and judge his reaction.

Her friend looks fucking scary. He looks like he’s trying very, very hard to contain his anger and like it isn’t really working. His mouth is sharply turned down at the corners, and his eyes are narrowed. Pat can’t really tell with his pads on, but she swears his shoulders are drawn up, and suddenly the way he’s sitting is intimidating. She immediately regrets her choice to tell her friend, because there’s no doubt he’s going to through a massive fucking tantrum and take it out on that one fucking dude.

The guys are all protective of Pat in normal circumstances. When other guys get too rough with her on the ice, they hit those dudes a little harder. When guys flirt with her at school and the team sees, they surround her like a fucking honor guard, throwing arms around her shoulders and talking loudly about that big hit they made in the last game. Even Saader gets into it sometimes, despite being a fucking freshman. It’s like they all think that just because she’s several inches shorter than them and a less physical player, they need to act like her fucking father.

Pat doesn’t need them to be even more aggressive about guys playing rough with her. Pat can take care of herself, for fuck’s sake, she’s not a fucking baby.

But now that Jonny knows what number 17 said to her, that’s going to fly out the fucking window. There’s only half a period left in the game, and the team needs to be focused on playing well and keeping their lead, not instigating fucking fights with every member of the opposing team.

“Jonny, don’t you fucking dare tell the guys. You keep to yourself, don’t get in a fucking fight.You’ll get suspended and Stamford will be smug about it for the next fucking decade. Keep yourself in check, you fucking idiot.” Pat’s serious, she’s really fucking serious. She doesn’t want to blow this fucking game just because one dude said something nasty.

Jonny glares at her, but nods anyways. He still looks fucking pissed, even through his cage, but at least he’s agreed to leave it alone.

However, when she next gets onto the ice and is waiting in the neutral zone for a pass, one of the Stamford defenseman skates right up behind her. He pushes her a little bit, though not enough to draw any sort of attention.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here, bitch. You can’t fucking compete, get off the ice before we fucking make you.”

A shiver runs up Pat’s spine at that dangerous implication, and just then the puck comes flying up her way. The thwap of it hitting her stick breaks her out of the shock she had momentarily fallen into, and she’s off.

Where the last insult made her trip, made her breath catch and her lungs squeeze uncomfortably in her chest, this one ignites her. This dude’s words light a fire under her heels and steels her heart so that all she fucking wants to do is win. The implication that she isn’t competitive on the ice, that she can’t fucking destroy these mega douches makes her unbearable angry, makes her want to win more than anything else. She wants to show them how girls play hockey.

She swings the puck around the dude who fucking threatened to injure her bad enough that she couldn’t play, and rushes up the ice. She shoots a quick pass across the ice to her left wing who picks up the puck and crosses the blue line. Jonny’s hot on their heels, covering space with those fucking long legs of his, and getting into position to get the puck right in front of the net. Pat looks away for a second, dodging around an opposing player, before looking up just in time to see a puck flying across the ice towards her.

She throws out her stick, just barely catching it, and dekes around the dude trying to press her into the fucking boards.

“Fucking cunt,” the guy mutters, and Pat’s will to win is cemented. The fire of determination burning in her chest is like a fucking bonfire, and she lets herself go.

Pat doesn’t even know how she does it, but suddenly she’s away from the boards and snapping the puck up into the high corner of the net and the crowd is roaring and the goal horn is buzzing and Jonny is crashing into her, shouting praise into her ear.

Pat throws her arms into the air and crows. Fucking idiots from Stamford, she thinks. They must not know how fucking motivation works.

 

It’s only later, after the game when Pat’s at dinner with Duncs, Seabs, Jonny, and Sharpy that she fully tells them what happened. It’s only after Pat’s kicked their asses, scoring the game winner for a game River Heights hadn’t won in years, that she tells her friends what the Stamford guys were saying to her. All of them are pissed, and Pat laughs at the stormy expressions that fall over their faces.

“I’m gonna kick their asses,” Duncs growls, and Jonny’s face is stormy and dark. Sharpy looks pissed, more angry than he probably should be considering the outcome of the game, and the captain and angry sides of Seabs are obviously at war with each other.

Pat looks at the four guys surrounding her, thinks about how much these guys have grown to mean to her. She stores the warm feeling of their tangible protectiveness to wrap around herself later, takes a mental picture of the murderous look on Jonny’s face for less… innocent reasons. She doesn’t want to need protection, but damn, being protected feels good.

“Oh, guys,” Pat croons, looking each of them in the eye and hoping they understand how much she appreciates their concern. “We already did.”

 

It’s so fucking cold. It’s fucking freezing and Coach is making them do dryland outside at the local park so they can jump up and down the amphitheater. Pat couldn’t be more miserable, honestly. She’s cold and wet from the weird gross ice misting the sky has rudely decided to do, and her sweatshirt and rain jacket and UnderArmour are seemingly useless in keeping Pat’s body warm.

Her legs are starting to hurt because they never do this much consecutive running and jumping and leaping, which Pat guesses is good. This is good for her, it’ll make her stronger.

It’s all fine except for the literal fucking hellish weather before the soccer girls show up.

They turn up in a massive group, their shiny blonde ponytails swinging perfecting, not a hair out of place. They all look far too awake and pretty and warm for this situation, and Pat really fucking hates soccer players, okay?

It’s just… They’re so pretty. It seems to Pat that every single soccer player has perfectly straight shiny hair and a more feminine figure and a less imposing and muscular body. They’re girly and pretty and Pat wants to strangle herself knowing that she looks the way she does when all these girls are here looking like this.

The girls are from a different high school, Pat doesn’t bother to look at the logo on their warm up jackets, although not bothering really would probably look more like belligerently ignoring the large group of girls.

The same cannot be said for the guys.

When everyone is lining up again to run up the bleachers, Pat hears the guys talking more about asses than she ever needed to. They’re all distracted, probably because most of the girls’ pants stretch just so across their asses.

Hoes.

Pat rolls her eyes and puts herself in the middle of the pack, hoping that way she can minimize the amount of disgustingness she has to hear from her teammates.

The thing is though, this isn’t really even the worst she’s heard from her team of absolute pigs. This summer they had been doing dryland at a park, running the trails and stopping every once and a while to do body weight circuits. Then there had been a group of girls playing tennis. The boys were so fucking distracted by their short skirts that the coach had to yell at them to pay attention to the workout or grow a pair and ask for some phone numbers.

That isn’t even considering all the awkward times Pat has spent in the middle on conversations she really didn’t need to hear about her teammates’ sex lives, trying to shrink into her seat and be as unnoticeable as possible.

The thing is, though… Well, the thing is that none of those times had Jonny really gotten involved, and all of those times were before Pat realized she had the hots for her liney.

But now Jonny seems distracted, looking over at the group of girls in between sets and out of the corner of his eye when the team is running. Pat’s chest is tight, jealousy and anger welling up in her throat. She knows it’s illogical, knows Jonny isn’t to blame and neither are the soccer girls, but she still is angry.

Pat watches Jonny watch the other girls, watches the rest of the guys whisper to each other in between sets, staring over at the group.

Pat gets cranky and she’s thankful that she’s working out right now and not having to interact with anyone. As it is, it isn’t like any of the guys would talk to her anyway, with how fucking distracted they are.

Boys are fucking disgusting.

They were most of the way through their workout when the soccer girls showed up, so Pat doesn’t have to watch her teammates drool over the other team for much longer. After what seems like an eternity, the dryland coach tells everyone to run their final cool down lap around the park. They set off, Pat running at a pace that really isn’t conducive to cooling down.

She’s just so angry, is the thing. She knows exactly why she’s angry, too, and yet it doesn’t really make any sense to her. So she sets off on that last lap, her heart pounding in her ears and her legs shaky and too-tired from the hard workout the coach put them through. Pat doesn’t realize until about halfway through her lap that Jonny has caught up to her until he says her name breathlessly, startling Pat out of her angry thoughts.

She looks over at her friend then, narrowing her eyes at him before turning back to look at where she’s going and ignoring him.

Pat finishes the rest of her lap with Jonny running beside her, and they both get a raised eyebrow and judgmental look from their coach for running at such a fast speed for their cool down. She really doesn’t give a shit.

Once they come to a stop, Pat considers sitting in the grass to stretch out and minimize how sore she’ll be tomorrow. However, she’s wet enough as it is with the strange terrible weather, and she doesn’t need to add sitting in the wet grass to that mixture. Unfortunately, this choice gives Jonny the impression that she’s ready to talk to him which is most certainly a false impression.

“That was quite the cool-down lap, Kaner,” he says, nudging Pat with his shoulder, trying to be nice and playful. Pat knows she isn’t being very subtle with her pissiness, but she honestly doesn’t give a shit. Jonny wasn’t being very subtle when he was staring at the soccer player’s asses.

“Yeah, I guess,” she says sulkily, hoping she’s giving off a cranky enough vibe that Jonny will just go the fuck away. Pat sees Jonny’s face out of the corner of her eye, sees his concerned expression and only feels a little bit bad for making her friend worried. She walks away from him them, going to stand on the other side of the coach to wait for everyone to get back and get the post-practice lecture.

 

After practice is officially over, Pat rushes over to wait by Sharpy’s car. She’s not thrilled she can’t just get in her own car and drive off dramatically, but what can she say. Her parents aren’t about to jump through the hoops required to get Pat a driver’s license here in Canada.

She’s leaning against the car, her water bottle on the ground and picking at her fingernails when Sharpy finally comes walking over. Pat isn’t sure he could be going any slower.

“In a hurry to get back, Kaner? Got a hot date you didn’t tell us about earlier?” Sharpy’s teasing, but Pat really isn’t in the mood.

“Shut the fuck up, Sharpy,” she grouches, pulling open the passenger door, throwing herself in the car, and slamming the door closed behind her. She swears she hears Sharpy mutter something to himself, but Pat doesn’t have enough energy to worry about that right now.

Sharpy circles around to the other side, pulling open his door and climbing in. The first five minutes of the drive back to Pat’s house are quiet, but not the comfortable quiet that usually settles over Pat and Sharpy. This time it’s tense, Pat’s bad move expanding and filling the small space of the car. She can see Sharpy shifting in his seat uncomfortably, glancing over at her and opening his mouth before shutting it again, reconsidering whatever he wanted to say.

Finally, when they’re pulling into Pat’s neighborhood, Sharpy says whatever he had been wanting to say before.

“Pat, listen…” he starts, trailing off, and Pat wants to shout at him to just grow a pair and spit it the fuck out. She doesn’t, thank God. She can’t alienate her ride home in this kind of weather.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset, but don’t think I didn’t notice you get all quiet and cranky after those soccer girls showed up.”

And maybe Pat didn’t want Sharpy to just spit it the fuck out. She really really doesn’t want to talk about the soccer girls, especially if her friend has figured out that Pat has some weird jealousy over Jonny despite having no actual right to at all. She shrinks down in her seat, praying to whoever will listen to make Sharpy just fuckin’ forget what he’s saying and go back to the uncomfortable quiet.

Unfortunately, it seems that no deity is listening to Pat after all, because Sharpy just keeps talking.

“I don’t really get what it would be like to be the outsider on a team, and I know it must be rough seeing all-girl sports teams. Just know we all want you here, and you don’t have to be pissy that other sports get all-girls teams. We would want you even if there was a girl’s hockey team.” Sharpy looks over at Pat when they’ve stopped at a stop sign, smiling over at her gently.

Pat doesn’t know what the fuck to do with that, because that is so far from why she hates soccer girls in this moment, but so fucking relevant to her daily attitude. It takes her a moment to even get an unintelligent “umm” out of her mouth, and another couple of seconds for anything substantial to be thought up.

“Wow, umm, thanks Sharpy,” Pat says, hoping it comes out genuine. “I’ll… be sure to keep that in mind.”

Thankfully, just as she says that, they’re pulling onto Pat’s street and she breathes a sigh of relief.

“Listen, I gotta go. I’ll see you on Monday.” She hopes out of the car quickly and gracelessly, hoping she doesn’t look too guilty or strange.

Hopefully the guys will have just forgotten out this by Monday, and she can slide by unnoticed.

 

“Eh! Seabsie!” Duncs calls out from across the restaurant. “What do you want to drink?”

Seabs shouts back his response, and Pat leans back against the booth she’s sitting in, watching the way Seabs stares at Duncs’ ass. She should really say something to him, but she doesn’t want to scare her captain. Besides, Pat really has no place to lecture someone about just talking to the person they like.

The whole team is out for a fast food lunch on a Sunday, and all of them feel pretty justified in their poor food choice because of the team bonding opportunity. Coach has been getting on them lately about being more of a cohesive team, despite their awesome record, and so they decided to heed his advice and schedule a team meal.

Pat is squeezed into a booth, Jonny on one side and Sharpy on the other. Overall it’s a great opportunity to be ruthlessly chirped, and Pat is already over the combination of their teasing thrown at her, and the teasing going on over her head. However, it isn’t as bad as Saader. This is the first time the entire team has gone out for a meal without coach or parent supervision, and the poor kid looks so fucking overwhelmed. Pat knows she’s just a year older than him, but Jesus Christ, she couldn’t have been that timid last year.

Pat loves spending time with her team. She can hardly believe she was so hesitant to talk to them at the beginning of the summer; now these guys are like her family. Even though they all have different types of friends outside of hockey, they still tend to gravitate towards each other. The entire school knows by know that if you fuck with one member of the hockey team, you’re fucking with all of them.

 

Pat finishes stroking the last coat of mascara onto her lashes just as someone bangs obnoxiously on her door.

“Hurry up, Kaner, Jesus, what could possibly take you so long?” comes Gags’ voice from the hall. Pat rolls her eyes, because honestly guys have no understanding of how long it takes girls to do anything.

“Just come in, you idiot,” she calls out, and a second later her door swings open and Gags strides in, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

“Pat,” he whines, dragging out her name as he flops down onto the floor. “You’re fine, you look great, come on.”

Pat grins, considering dragging out her getting ready routine even longer just to annoy her friend, but figures that the repercussions from that would be too dangerous.

Gags has flown out for a long weekend and is staying in the Kanes’ guest bedroom. That morning the two went skating at a local pond and played a pickup game with the people there. Afterward they went out for some lunch, and then came back to lounge on the sofa and watch TV.

Pat hasn’t spent a full day with Gags in months, and it’s been fucking awesome. Pat knows that the day has been rather mundane in the grand scheme of things, but simply being with her friend has made the whole thing better.

It’s just after dusk now, and Pat and Gags are supposed to be at Sharpy’s in an hour. His parents are out of town so he’s throwing a party that is supposed to be epic or something, though that’s what Sharpy says about every party he throws.

Pat has already told the guys she would be bringing a friend from Buffalo, though she suspects they think her guest will be a girl. She hopes that Gags and the guys will get along well.

Just as dinner is ending, there’s a loud honk from out front.

“Oh, sorry, Mom,” she says as she quickly gets up from the table, scooping her and Gags’ plates up in a rush to the kitchen. “That’s Crow.”

Gags gets up from the table, thanking Pat’s parents from the meal. After putting everything in the sink, Pat grabs her coat from the hall closet and she and Gags step out into the cold night just as Crow honks again.

Pat rushes to open up the door to Crow’s truck, and climbs into the backseat to let Gags have the passenger.

“Who’s your friend, Kaner?” the goalie asks.

“Gags, Crow. Crow, Gags. I played with him in Buffalo. Gags, Crow’s our goalie.”

“Good to meet you, dude,” Gags says, and Crow nods before turning up the music.

The rest of the ride is relatively quiet, but not really awkward. Crow is weird, just like most goalies, and Gags seems to get it. Pat knew he would.

When they pull onto Sharpy’s street, there are only six or seven cars parked down the street, so Crow easily finds a spot. He pulls up, and all three of them climb out of the car. There isn’t a lot of noise coming from the house, just some music and the rise and fall of voices. Crow pounds on the door and they hear someone walking over to open it up.

“Kaner! Crow!” Sharpy yells as the door swings open, and they all step inside. “Everyone’s in the kitchen, there’s some beer, but that’s it. Gotta a game to play tomorrow and all.” Sharpy grins, eyes scanning over them, suddenly stopping on Gags.

“Well, well, well, Patty Cakes, you got a friend?” Sharpy smirks, smarmy and gross and Pat glares at him.

“This is Gags,” she tells her obnoxious friend. “We played together in Buffalo.”

“Well, Gags, it’s good to meet a friend of Kaner’s. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about.” Pat isn’t sure, but she thinks she hears an edge to Sharpy’s voice and sees a vaguely threatening glint in his eye. She dismisses it, though, because what issue would Sharpy have with Gags already?

Sharpy leads them down the hall towards the voices of Pat’s teammates.

“Hey, is that Kaner?” Steeger calls out just as Pat walks into the kitchen.

“Fuck yeah, it is,” Pat says with a smirk. “Guys, this is Gags,” she says when her friend walks into the kitchen. “Gags, these are the guys,” She looks up at Gags and smiles. “Don’t listen to anything they say, not trustworthy enough.”

“Eh!” Duncs yelps, and Pat laughs.

“That’s Duncs and Seabs, and Ladder. Hoss, Steeger, Tazer, Saader, Shawsy, and Hammer,” Pat tells Gags, pointing to each boy as she says their name. They smile at Gags, though some of them look forced and pained, especially Jonny. “And that’s Sharpy’s girlfriend, Abby.” Abby, thank goodness, acts like a normal fucking human being, smiling warmly and waving from where she’s tucked up next to Sharpy.

Jonny’s face is reminiscent of how it looked when Pat first joined the team, when Jonny was unmistakably against her being there. Now he looks about ready to throw Gags out on his ass, ready to tell him just how he isn’t doing good enough.

Pat isn’t sure why the guys look strained. She knows that they were probably expecting a girl friend from Buffalo, not a former teammate, but that’s no reason to be so stiff. Pat isn’t sure if it’s something she’s done, something to offend all of them. Maybe they’re worried about Pat not caring about the team, but that’s crazy, because she cares more about this team than anything. She resolves to ask Seabs why everyone is acting so weird, because surely he’ll know. He’s the captain.

 

Pat spends the rest of the night trying to make everything less awkward. None of her teammates act right around Gags, with the exception of Saader.

At one point, when the time is nearing ten o’clock and none of the older guys have made anything resembling normal human conversation with Pat’s friend, Pat gets up from the sofa where she’s sitting and tugs on Gags’ hoodie to get him to follow her. She leads him to a hallway, far enough away from the group that they won’t hear what she’s saying.

“Hey, I’m sorry about how the guys are treating you. They’re not usually this…” Pat trails off, not knowing the best way to describe how her friends are acting.

The corner of Gags’ mouth quirks up a bit. “They’re being douchebags, but it’s okay. I get it.”

Pat’s eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. “What do you mean? They’re being super shitty, why would you just dismiss that?”

Gags just smiles at her. “They think I’m into you Pat. They don’t want some dude to take advantage of you.”

There’s so much that’s fucked up with that statement that Pat doesn’t even know where to start. She stammers for a bit, unsure how to respond to something that crazy.

“But you’re not!” she finally says, louder than she really meant to. Gags laughs at her, though not with any malice.

“Pat, if you didn’t know us, wouldn’t you think it was a little bit strange the way we act? I mean, seriously. We played hockey together for only a year and now I’m coming up to visit you in the different country that you’ve moved too. You touch me a lot—”

“No, I don’t!” Pat cuts in. “It’s all playful!”

“You touch me a lot,” Gags continues, ignoring that Pat said anything at all. “We’re obviously very close, comfortable in each other’s space. We know each other super well, can almost tell what the other is thinking. That kind of friendship isn’t usually found between a dude and chick. It’s not an unreasonable assumption.”

Pat stops and mulls it over. She thinks about it, how she wears big Orchard Park Knights sweatshirts to practice, of how she can say exactly what Gags is thinking and vice versa. Pat thinks about how she and her best friend act around each other, and how people who haven’t been around her and Gags together before would interpret it. She thinks, and she can’t help but see how that would make sense.

“We’ll talk about this when we get home,” Pat says, unsure. “I’ll talk to Seabs, ask him to get everyone’s hackles down.”

Gags smiles at her. “Maybe talk to Toews yourself,” he says gently, and Pat can’t even start to think about why she should do that. Thinking this evening is already a little bit difficult, what with the beer in her system, but that sounds like something that’s going to have to wait until the next day.

The rest of the evening goes better after Pat says something to Seabs. Her captain nods when Pat asks him to tell the guys to back off, and somehow passes the message around within only a handful of minutes, because soon everyone is behaving relatively normally. Jonny still seems a little cranky — well, crankier than usual.

Things especially pick up once the topic switches to hockey, and Pat is left blushing as the guys pass around stories of their smallest teammate’s antics on the ice.

“Have you ever seen her just straight up skate underneath a dude?” Gags asks enthusiastically.

“It’s fuckin’ wild, man! She just like fuckin’ glides underneath these fuckin’ huge ass dudes with beards and shit,” Saader exclaims, the slight slur to his words giving away the beers he’s had to drink. He looks more than a little starry eyed, and the guys laugh.

“Eh man, I get how you’re feeling. You should’ve fuckin’ seen how Pat played the first scrimmage we had; no one knew what the fuck to do with her. Just this freshman chick, small as fuck but goddamn could she move a puck around. None of us could really understand what was happening,” Gags says, and Pat kicks his leg.

“That’s not true; you were good, too,” she says, because it’s true. Both she and Gags easily made it on the Varsity team, even if they were playing third or fourth line most of the year. And even that was more about giving the upperclassmen the spotlight, instead of letting the show get stolen by a couple of freshman.

“Oh, whatever, you’ve always been the best. Though I hear Toews over there gives you a run for your money,” Gags says, smirking at Pat. She kicks him again, hard enough for her friend to let out a small yelp.

The room is quiet though, and when Pat looks up, she sees everyone staring at Jonny. He’s scowling, though she can’t tell if it’s because of the expectant looks he’s receiving or if it has to do with the bad mood he’s had all night. Knowing Jonny, it’s probably both.

“Eh, Kaner’s okay. She could be better,” Jonny says in his monotone. Pat rolls her eyes and laughs, because that’s so like Jonny.

“Whatever, you know I’m fuckin’ awesome.”

Gags hums. “Well, Toews, I’d like to see anyone who can claim Pat is just ‘okay.’ Good thing I’ll still be in town for the game tomorrow.” He smirks at Jonny, and the older boy sits up straighter, stops leaning against the wall.

“Oh yeah?” he asks, and there’s a hint of venom just below his usual monotone. Pat frown a little, because she really isn’t enjoying how much of a dick Jonny has been this evening. “How long will you be in town?”

Gags sighs a little, and Pat tucks her toes beneath his legs in a show of support. Jonny really isn’t helping his reputation this evening, and Pat knows that when they get back, Gags will question the raging crush she has on her teammate. “I’m flying back on Monday. It’s a four day weekend, so I figured it’d be nice to fly out and see Pat for a bit.”

Jonny’s face doesn’t change, so Pat guesses that’s something good. However, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s going to have to have a serious talk with her linemate tomorrow after the game about his seriously dickish behavior this evening.

Saader breaks in just then, and Pat isn’t sure if the younger boy is oblivious to the tension in the air, or simply doesn’t care about it. “That’s super cool that you would fly out,” he says, a big smile on his face. “I don’t know if my parents would ever buy me a ticket to see a friend, but that’s awesome that yours did.”

“Oh trust me,” Pat says exasperated. “It took some convincing on both ends. Getting my parents to let Gags stay with us was a huge fuckin’ battle.”

Gags laughs. “Oh, yeah. Our parents were worried we would be fucking in the middle of the night or something, which is fuckin’ crazy.”

Pat laughs, because her parents had told her very seriously that they would not allow any funny business while Gags was there, and that both of their doors would stay open the entirety of the visit. Pat had just laughed, because the idea of fucking Gags was so foreign and dumb. Her parents had been bewildered. “Dude, my parents were so fucking worried about Gags, like, sneaking into my room and demanding a blowjob.”

Sharpy yelps from across the room, and Abby is frowning at him slightly.

“Don’t worry about it,” she assures before looking up at her boyfriend and glaring at him again. Pat loves Abby.

Everyone moves on then, because no one wants to get in Abby’s way. Soon the conversation has shifted to something about a TV show Pat doesn’t watch, and she takes the opportunity to get up and get a glass of water.

As she stands up, she looks over at Jonny and sees him looking at her and scowling. She gives him an inquisitive look, but gets no response. Pat sighs in exasperation, and waves to him, asking for him to follow her into the kitchen.

Sure enough, the taller boy is right behind her when she’s closed the refrigerator door, water bottle in hand. His face is blank now, devoid of the blatant anger that had been on it just seconds ago in the living room.

“Jonny, what the fuck,” Pat states, because what else is she supposed to say? Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, her comment makes her friend shut down even further, and Pat isn’t really sure how to approach this conversation.

“Ok…” she says, dragging out the word. “I swear I’m not trying to offend you, but I seriously don’t understand why you’re acting like such a douche right now. You’re being so cold and rude and harsh towards Gags, and I really don’t fucking understand.”

Jonny’s face flickers to something vulnerable maybe, almost hurt, but it changes back again so quickly that Pat is almost positive she imagined it. When her friend speaks, it’s cold and emotionless, and Pat thinks this is the most robotic she’s seen him since the summer.

“Kaner, there’s nothing wrong. I’ve just had a rough day, I’m tired. A lot of school work, and my parents are getting on me about college. It’s all fine.”

The thing is, though, Pat knows that all of that is true. She’s seen him frowning to himself during practice, and has heard Seabs and him muttering quietly in the corner about college and grades and tests. Pat knows that isn’t what’s causing him to be a massive douche, though, because yeah, Jonny gets douchy when he’s stressed, but this is different. This is almost mean and angry, and there’s something unsettling about the mask he’s obviously wearing right now.

Pat also doesn’t understand why Jonny would be hiding his anger from her. She knows from past experiences that her friend has no qualms about telling the people he’s close with what he’s frustrated about, and she also knows that he has a pretty terrible poker face around his closest friends. Pat actually can’t comprehend why he would be so cold and distant from her right now; she just wants to know what’s wrong and maybe help fix it.

“Whatever, listen, I’m not a fuckin’ idiot. I know that’s bullshit, so I either need you to fuckin’ stop being such an asshole to my friend or tell me what’s wrong so I can fuckin’ be there for you and help fix it.” Pat’s voice is harsh. She knows that, and is maybe even trying to play it up a little bit to throw Jonny off some. However, it doesn’t seem to work, because she gets no outward reaction from her teammate.

After a quiet, awkward second, Jonny huffs out a big sigh. “Sorry for bothering you so much, didn’t realize you would care.” His voice couldn’t sound less apologetic, and Pat is suddenly right back in summer training, trying to introduce herself to a boy who wants nothing to do with her. It makes her chest seize up, and she can’t breathe for a second. Pat thought they were past all the douchebaggery, but apparently not. Pat’s about to say something else, she isn’t sure what, but Jonny is already walking back towards the group, and she is left standing in front of Sharpy’s fridge, mouth open and chest tight.

At least Jonny kind of listens to her. He’s less openly hostile; Pat only catches him sending Gags his terrifying laser eyes a couple of times the rest of the night. Pat’s thankful, she guesses, because her teammate could have disregarded the conversation completely. However, when the clock betrays her in showing a time dangerously close to Pat’s curfew, and she and Gags say their goodbyes, Jonny stays completely quiet but for a small grunt in Pat’s direction.

The ride home is quiet, but not really in a bad way. Ladder lives near Pat, and he too needed to head home, so he volunteered to give the Americans a ride back home. Once they pull up in front of Pat’s house, the quiet calm is broken, and she and Gags quickly climb out of the car, saying their thank you’s. The pair walks up the front walk, each thinking the evening over. Hand on the front door handle, Pat stops and looks at her friend.

“Hey, I know you told me why they were doing it, but I really am sorry my team was so awful. They aren’t usually like that, and I feel really bad about it,” Pat pauses for a second before continuing, “Especially Jonny. He was kind of super fuckin’ awful.” She glances up at her friend, looking him in the eye for a quick second before looking back down, embarrassed by the behavior of her teammates.

“Hey, Patty, it’s fine,” Gags smiles at her warmly, his eyes reflecting the sincerity in his voice. “I told you, I don’t really blame them. I’d be pretty hostile to a guy hanging around you, too, if I didn’t know them.” He smirks at her, and Pat smacks her friend in the arm playfully.

“Oh whatever, you guys just all like playing big brother.” Pat rolls her eyes as if it doesn’t make her chest warm to know that her guys look out for her.

 

They’re coming back from a hard game at a rink an hour and a half away, a distance deemed too long to make parents drive everyone but too short to stay overnight. Pat’s exhausted; everyone is, really. They lost by one goal, and the entire game was a fight to get ahead.

The bus is quiet, everyone brought down by their exhaustion and the loss. Pat’s sitting next to Jonny. On the way on the bus she was headed towards Sharpy, but her linemate had grabbed her arm and dragged her into the seat next to him on. She had been a bit miffed at first; sitting next to Sharpy after a loss is always more bearable than sitting next to Jonny. However, after a little bit she doesn’t mind. Jonny has a book with him, some title in French that looks pretentious and stupid and so, so Jonny.

(Pat herself is currently enjoying the copy of the first Harry Potter she’s borrowing from Jess.)

After a half an hour or so, the words on the page of Pat’s book start to become hazy and she realizes she doesn’t remember anything that happened on the last couple of pages. She closes her book and shuts her eyes, hoping that maybe she’ll be allowed to nap on the bus for once.

When Pat sleepily blinks her eyes open again, it’s to the slowly rising noise on the bus, people shifting and talking. Her head is rested against something warm and firm, and there’s a warm weight on her shoulders. She looks up to see Jonny, right there still reading his stupid French book, but now she’s a lot closer.

Jonny’s arm has been slung around Pat’s shoulders and her head is resting on his chest. She didn’t realize how much taller Jonny is than her, but now that she’s basically curled up against him, she feels small and warm and cared for.

She really can’t afford this, with all the rest of the feelings she feels every time she so much as looks as her teammate.

Pat sits up hastily, apologizing frantically.

“I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to like fall asleep on you, really, I know it must’ve been a pain,” she rushes out, and Jonny just looks at her, a confused wrinkle between his brows.

“I don’t mind, Kaner, seriously.”

Pat looks down at her feet, her face hot with embarrassment. “I…” she trails off, not really knowing how to respond to Jonny.

“Besides, you would’ve gotten cold otherwise, considering how tiny you are,” Jonny chirps, and it’s a bad one, really but Pat still smiles and elbows him in the side.

“Whatever, asshat.”

 

Pat’s alarm clock goes off, shrill and loud and far too early. Her nose is backed up and her throat hurts; she’s exhausted despite having fallen asleep at nine the previous evening. It seems like she’s caught the cold that’s been going around, and isn’t that just her luck. Pat can feel the soreness in her legs from the skating yesterday just laying there, so she knows that when she gets up the pain will be even worse. She lays there for a couple of minutes, willing the universe to change the game date or at least have it be later in the day.

Pat really doesn’t want to play today. She rarely gets that feeling, rarely ever would rather do something besides hockey. But today Pat can feel that her hockey won’t be good.

And today is the goddamn first postseason game.

Pat plays on the first line; she’s one of the best wingers in the program. She knows that Jonny will be relying on her, that all of the guys will be relying on her. She can’t afford to slack just because she has a head cold and some sore muscles.

Pat’s just rolled over onto her other side, contemplating the terrible, terrible hockey she’s going to play and the horrible, embarrassing failure she’s going to make of herself, when Jackie bursts into the room.

“Paa-aat,” she sings, and Pat groans at the loud noise accosting her sensitive head. Jackie must notice that Pat is in distress, because she’s soon at Pat’s beside peering down at her.

“Pat, what’s wrong?” she asks, and goddamn Pat loves her sisters.

“Hey Jackie,” she says and her voice is rough and scratchy from sleep. “I’m just not feeling so good right now, but I’ll be fine.”

“Do you need some tea or something?” Jackie asks earnestly, and Pat smiles.

“Nah, but I do need someone to talk to me over breakfast.”

Jackie grins at that. “Well then, you’re gonna have to get out of bed first.”

Pat sighs dramatically before pushing her covers back and swinging her legs out of her bed. “Hold on, let me grab a sweatshirt, and then we can go eat.”

Jackie bounces down the stairs, far too full of energy for the morning while Pat slowly hobbles down, fearing the stiffness in her legs. The littlest Kane girl is talking the whole time, though thankfully not about the game that’s taking place later that day. It’s all about what happened in class this week and the easy, simple things she and her fourth grade friends get up to.

It’s relaxing, almost, and certainly refreshing. Pat doesn’t get to talk to Jackie one on one a lot because of her busy schedule, but when she does, she always enjoys it. It’s better than Jess’s middle school drama or Erica’s freshman issues, though that’s not to say she doesn’t love all her sisters. Pat’s sisters are the fuckin’ best, even when they’re being annoying shits.

Pat gets downstairs and makes herself some eggs while the constant conversation coming from her littlest sister continues. It’s only after Pat has finished her breakfast that Jess stumbles down the stairs, sleepily rubbing at her eyes.

“Hey, Pat,” she says. “Where’s Mom and Dad?”

Pat was honestly enjoying her parents’ absence. She doesn’t want to deal with her mother’s coddling or her father’s concern about the game. She just wants to settle in the comfort of her sisters, of family who sees her before they see her hockey.

“I don’t know, they were gone when I woke up,” Pat says as she gets up to clean her dishes. “I’m sure they’ll be back soon.”

“Hey, you good?” Jess asks, sounding concerned. “You’re walking strange.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Pat reassures, and she must be convincing her sister as much as she’s convincing herself because Jess gives her a skeptical look and crosses her arms across her chest.

“Uh-huh, because someone who’s fine hobbles like an old man.”

Pat sighs. “Okay fine, I might be a little sore from yesterday’s workout. But I’ll be fine.” She glares at her sister, daring her to challenge Pat.

“Make sure you, like, stretch and stuff. Do the foam roller, maybe; we can’t have a sore Pat skating today.” Jess says, trying to disguise her obvious concern with a know-it-all tone.

“And talk to your coaches and team about you not feeling well,” Erica calls from the top of the stairs. Pat rolls her eyes at her bossy, eavesdropping little sister.

“Come down here and then maybe I’ll listen to you,” Pat calls back up, and Erica comes down the stairs.

“Whatever, I know you’re thinking about it, you can’t fool me,” Erica smirks at her, and Pat rolls her eyes because she’s totally right.

Pat thinks that maybe if she went to Jonny he would look out for her. Maybe he would tell the rest of the guys that she’s not at her best, and they could pick up the slack. And Pat’ll tell Coach she’s not feeling well, but she knows he isn’t going to do anything. She doesn’t think the coaches even care that her playing bad would affect the team, she just thinks they don’t want her to return next year.

 

Pat gets to the rink a little bit early, leaving enough time to be able to talk to the coaches about how she’s feeling. She dresses slowly, feeling lethargic and slow and tired. She keeps sniffing, trying to keep her nose clear from the snot built up. Once her gear is on, minus skates, she goes to find Coach Martin and tell them how shitty she feels.

She finds him walking out of the locker room the guys are using, and hurries to catch up to him.

“Hey, Coach,” she says, hearing the nasally tone of her voice and cringing a bit internally.

“Patricia,” Martin says, nodding at her but continuing to walk. Pat can work with this, she’s fine.

“So, as you probably know, there’s a bug going around right now, and I think I’ve caught it? So I’m not really feeling in top condition today, so, like, I’m not sure how well I’ll play today,” Pat rambles, talking too quickly to come off as totally calm and collected. She’s nervous that the coaches won’t listen to her complaints, that they’ll play her just as hard as they normally would.

“Thanks for checking in, I’ll take that into account,” Martin says, looking her in the eyes for a split second before continuing away.

Pat is smart enough to know when she’s been dismissed, so she turns the other way to grab her stuff and then wait until she’s called into the boy’s locker room to hang out before the game.

When she walks into the room a couple minutes later, called in by Sharpy yelling at her to “get her ass in here for some fucking top notch team bonding,” Pat immediately seeks out Jonny.

He’s sitting on a bench, skate laces half done, watching the rest of the team. She walks over to sit beside him, setting her stuff down next to his. She pulls open her skates to start putting them on, more to have something to with her hands than because she really needs to.

“What’s up, Kaner,” Jonny says to her, and Pat heaves out a big sigh before sniffing her nose.

“I’m not feeling so great today,” she tells her linemate quietly, because she needs to fucking tell him. He needs to know why she won’t be performing her best during the game, and she needs any help he can give her. “Coach probably isn’t going to do anything about it, but I’m not going to be playing my best today. If there’s any way you can pick up the slack, that would be really fuckin’ awesome.”

Jonny’s eyebrows draw together, and he turns to look at Pat full on. “Are you sure you should be playing then?” he asks, concern plain in his voice. Pat just shakes her head.

“Coach won’t pull me, I know it. I’m playing, but I need you to know I won’t be at my best.”

Jonny just looks more concerned. “Okay Kaner, I got your back. But just… be careful, please. Don’t take any risks.”

 

 

Pat is tired. She knows she’s tired. Her throat hurts now more than it had the first or second periods, and her legs feel like lead. She isn’t sure how she’s going to skate the next period, especially with the extra shifts the coaches have been making her skate.

They line up for the first faceoff of the third period, and Pat breathes in deeply to try to focus her attention on the game. The whistle blows, the puck drops, and Jonny comes up with the puck.

Immediately Pat rushes down the ice, trying to get in a position where she can receive a strategically beneficial pass. Obviously she’s in the right spot, because the puck comes rushing towards her, and the thwap of it hitting her stick bounces around in Pat’s ears for longer than is probably healthy.

She looks up and sees one of the biggest high school d-men she’s ever skated against rushing towards her, obviously gearing up for a big hit. Pat knows that if that guy hits her, she’s gonna go down in a dangerous way, especially considering the condition she’s in right now.

It all happens in a matter of seconds. The d-man rushes towards her, and Pat makes to skate around him, sticking near the boards and hoping to out maneuver the big dude. She goes to twist around, doing some fancy stickhandling to keep the puck away from her opponent.

However, in the middle of a stroke of her skate blade, she feels something go wrong. The edge of Pat’s skate blade gives out, and next thing she knows, she’s hitting the boards hard, feet first. She feels and hears a crack, and for a second her vision goes black from pain. She thinks maybe she cries out a little bit, makes some sort of wounded noise. It’s another second before she realizes what’s happened, even if the realization is hazy and vague.

Pat squeezes her eyes shut, hoping and praying that this game is just a bad dream, that maybe this whole year is a bad dream. That she’ll wake up in her bed in her room in Buffalo, early in order to make it to morning practice. Pat hopes that she’ll open her eyes to a world where the coaches aren’t shitty, where she plays with boys whom she has no complicated feelings for, where her life is easy.

However, she opens her eyes and sees the rink ceiling above her, the metal beams holding up the arched ceiling and the artificial cold biting her nose. She feels the faded cold of the ice through her gear and the smooth worn inside of her gloves against her fingers. Most of all, Pat feels the piercing overwhelming pain in her ankle, a pain that Pat has never experienced before.

Pat knows sprained ankles. She’s a hockey player, how could she not? But this is different. Pat knows that her ankle is probably bent at an awkward angle, that it’s red but already starting to bruise. Pat’s seen a broken ankle before; she’s seen teammates get them during games. She knows what’s going on right now, and she wants to scream and cry and beat her fists against the ice to try to physically represent the pain she’s feeling in her soul right now.

Pat guesses that she’s been on the ice for a couple seconds too long now, because she’s looking up at the ceiling, wishing for it to come crumbling down and end it all right now, when a whistle blows and then Jonny’s face appears in her field of vision.

“You good, Kaner?” he asks, a little smirk on his face, maybe ready to lightly chirp her about staying down so long. However, he must see the tears threatening to fall from her eyes, the pained twist to her mouth, through her cage. Jonny’s face scrunches up then, more emotive then she’s maybe ever seen it. He drops down onto his knees. “Pat, Pat, oh my God. What happened? Are you okay? Is it your head?” He sounds concerned and breathless, like someone has just punched him in the stomach.

It takes Pat a second to even register his words, and a couple more to respond to them. She can’t focus on anything but the “Pat.” She knows it’s dumb, fuck it’s so dumb, but Jonny has never called her that before, no one on the team has. Pat can’t help but feel like her teammate calling her that is something special, something that isn’t just friends. Pat knows it’s crazy, but she can’t fucking help it.

After a second, though, Pat snaps out of her stupid pathetic thoughts enough to respond to Jonny, who’s been joined by a ref and one of the school trainers. “My ankle,” she gets out, trying her best to not let the intense pain she’s experiencing leak into her voice.

The trainer sinks down to her knees, and waves out the other one waiting by the rink door to come out and help Pat. The ref, a graying balding dude with caterpillar eyebrows, looks concerned, but nothing compared to Jonny. He’s still at his knees by her side, and his face looks crushed, even more now that he’s removed his helmet so she can actually see his face. “Pat, it’s okay, you’ll be fine, you’ll be able to play.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than her, and Pat just shakes her head.

“I think it’s broken,” she whispers after Jonny and the trainer have helped her sit up and she’s taken off her helmet and gloves. Instead of his face crumpling even more, which is what Pat was almost expecting, it hardens. Jonny looks furious, so angry that Pat almost flinches away from the pure rage painting his face.

Seabs must see Jonny’s reaction, because there’s suddenly a hand on Jonny’s shoulder and their captain’s voice, soft and comforting pulling him away. Jonny stands up though, pushes Seabs hard. “Fuck off,” Jonny growls at the d-man, and turns back to Pat. “What can I do?” he asks the trainer, and she shakes her head at him.

“You need to play, let us handle this,” the woman tells him. Pat isn’t sure what his reaction is, because she’s suddenly so focused on getting to her feet and trying to get back to the bench without crumpling in pain. All her focus shifts onto that simple task, suddenly huge and impossible and so so painful.

So that’s that. Pat makes her way off the ice supported by a trainer on her right side the entire time, is laid down on a bench away from the rink, and the older woman carefully takes off her right skate, talking softly the entire time. Pat doesn’t hear any of what she’s saying, though, too caught up in the pain and discomfort and disbelief that she won’t be able to fucking play.

Coach Clark doesn’t come to talk to Pat until after the trainer has wrapped her ankle, putting ice packs all around it to try to keep down the swelling until Pat’s parents can get her to the ER. He doesn’t say much, just to let the coaching staff know about her ability to play and that the whole organization hopes she’ll make a swift recovery. Pat certainly doesn’t believe that any of the coaches will miss her.

Her mom and dad had come to check on her and talk to the trainer attending to her around the time that Pat’s skate had finally been wiggled off, but Pat didn’t pay them any attention. Her mom is lightly rubbing her back, gentle and comforting, and she has no idea where her sisters are. Her father, however, is stormy and gray, all sharp angry angles and a frustrated twist to his mouth. Pat knows that her father cares about her hockey, knows it down to her bones. Her father was always the one who drove her to practices when she was younger, the one who brought her to get new skates or encouraged her to go work on her shot in the driveway. However, as she’s gotten older, the care about her hockey has become more overwhelming and less about father-daughter bonding. Pat sometimes feel suffocated, crushed under the weight of her father’s expectations for her. She can’t imagine how much harder it would be for her if she was a boy, bearing the weight of an expectation to go pro.

Finally, the trainer helps Pat up so Erica, who’s appeared out of nowhere, can help her to the car.

“Patty, hey, common,” her sister quietly says into her ear, snapping Pat out of her thoughts. “Put your arm around me, I’ll help you out to the car.”

“Sorry again we don’t have any crutches,” the trainer says, sounding genuinely sorry. Pat gives her the best smile she’s capable of before wrapping her arm around her sisters shoulders and motioning to the door.

“Well then,” she says, voice a little scratchy. “To the ER.”


	4. spring

When Pat, her father, and Erica pull into the ER parking lot, it’s as deathly quiet as it has been the entire car ride there from the rink. Erica quickly hops out of the car and circles around to help Pat out of the car while their father goes inside to check them in.

Pat and Erica hobble in, and they must look crazy. Pat still has her breezers on, but she’s ditched her sweater and pads. Her hair is greasy and pulled into the same tangled ponytail that she’d had in when she injured herself, but now it’s mussed and falling out of the hair tie. Erica isn’t really big enough to support Pat, but she’s making it work.

Erica struggles with the doors inside until finally someone helps them in. Pat’s sister settles her into a chair, and Pat winces when her ankle is jostled. Pat’s father walks over to the two girls once he’s finished checking them in.

“Looks as if they’ll be able to get you in in around twenty to thirty minutes. In the meantime, they say we can go up and ask for ice packs when yours melt.” Patrick Kane couldn’t look less happy. Pat knows that her father cares a lot about her hockey, and the only reason she isn’t playing for a team far from her family is because it is unlikely that Pat’s hockey career will ever take her further than college. Pat knows that her dad is crushed right now, not just because his daughter is injured, but because he doesn’t know when Pat will be able to play again.

It hurts, honestly, for the only thing that her father ever outwardly cares about to be Pat’s game. Yeah, Pat loves hockey too, but sometimes she just wants support from her father. It really isn’t that much to ask for.

The three Kanes wait for around twenty-five minutes until an exhausted looking nurse calls for them.

“Patricia Kane?” the woman calls, and Erica waves her over.

“Could we get some crutches or something?” she asks, and the nurse nods quickly, disappearing into the back for a minute before returning with a wheelchair. Pat’s dad and the nurse help Pat into it, before she is wheeled into an examination room.

They wait for another five or ten minutes there, before a graying man walks in, and shakes Pat’s dad’s hand, and introduces himself. Pat isn’t really listening until the man turns to her and begins asking questions.

“So, Ms. Kane, can you describe what happened before you hurt yourself?”

Pat explains what happened, going through the story and trying her best not to get emotional. She already knows she’s broken her ankle, even without the doctor officially telling her.

The doctor then carefully removes the ice packs taped to Pat’s ankle to look at it, taking in the ugly bruising and not-quite-right angle that it’s hanging at. He presses on it once and Pat yelps loudly in pain.

“Okay,” the man says, standing up. “We’re going to run some quick x-rays to verify that Ms. Kane’s ankle is broken, and then decide the best way to treat the break. Fortunately, if indeed it is broken, it doesn’t look like it’s too bad of an injury. Ms. Kane,” the doctor turns his attention to Pat, “We will wheel you into the x-ray room to take some pictures. It will probably be another hour to hour and a half before we will be able to treat the injury.”

 

It’s been around a half an hour since Pat’s foot was stuck beneath an x-ray machine, and she’s sitting in the examination room next to Erica, whispering quietly with her sister while her father sits across the room and reads a magazine he picked up from the waiting room.

Just then, the doctor from before knocks on the door before walking in. He sits himself on the rolling chair in the corner of the room before starting to talk.

“It looks as if Ms. Kane has a Medial Malleolus fracture, which is a fracture in the lower tibia at the inner base of the ankle. Fortunately, it appear the ankle is stable according to the x-rays we ran, so she will not have to undergo surgery. To treat the fracture, Ms. Kane will have to wear a short cast for the next six weeks, after which we will be able to transfer to a boot which she can walk in.” The doctor couldn’t sound more bored, and honestly, Pat doesn’t blame him. This is Canada: the ankle break rate up here is probably insane.

Her father jumps in just then, however, his voice stern and his crossed arms and furrowed eyebrows giving away just how unhappy he is with the situation. “Will Patricia be able to walk on her foot while the cast is on it?”

At that, the doctor’s face twitches a little, giving away the terrible answer before he even opens his mouth. “Unfortunately,” he starts, and Pat collapses back against the shitty hospital bed she’s been sitting on, jostling her leg and wincing a little at the resulting pain. “Unfortunately, she will not be able to put weight on her ankle for the next six weeks.”

“For now, we will just wrap Ms. Kane’s ankle to try to stabilize it, but you all will have to make an appointment at the local hospital to get an actual cast on as soon as possible. Please use crutches.”

Pat summons the energy to ask the doctor a question just then, her voice quiet and scratchy. “Do you know when I’ll be able to skate again?” She hates how vulnerable she sounds, but she honestly can’t help it. Erica grabs her hand and squeezes tight.

A sympathetic look comes over the doctor’s face, and when he answers Pat’s question his voice is soft and gentle. “Unfortunately, you will most likely be unable to skate at least until the boot comes off, which will probably be in two to three months. However, it is best to be cautious and not skate until two to three weeks after that.”

Pat’s face crumples, and she hides her face in her hands.

“I’m very sorry,” the doctor says, and Pat actually believes him.

Pat zones out for the rest of the time she’s there. A nurse wraps up her ankle before wheeling her out into the waiting room and then out to the car. She helps Erica and Pat’s dad get Pat into the backseat of the car, and Pat’s dad puts the crutches given to them in the trunk.

The entire car ride home, Pat cries quietly in the back seat.

She won’t be able to play.

She won’t be able to fucking play.

Pat doesn’t know how she’s going to make it.

 

It’s the Wednesday after The Game. Pat hasn’t been in school for the past three days, too busy with doctors’ appointments and feeling sorry for herself. The only people she’s spoken to are her family, not wanting to have to see anyone who reminds her of hockey.

Pat knows that Erica has been stopped in the halls at school and asked about Pat. She knows that Erica has told Gags what happened, but she’s purposefully ignoring any calls or texts or emails from any of the guys.

Pat’s girlfriends stopped by after school the previous day, bringing a big bouquet of flowers and a large platter of cookies. They helped some, with all of them sitting around Pat, painting her nails and drawing on her cast and making jokes about stupid dumb things. However, as soon as they left the good humor they brought left, and Pat went back to being sad and pathetic and mopey.

Pat’s mom picked Jackie up early from school today to spend time with Pat, so they’ve been laying on the sofa watching Disney movies, Jackie wedged between Pat and the back of the sofa. Their mom made them a bowl of popcorn, but Pat’s been letting Jackie eat most of it. She’s gonna have to watch what she eats now that she’s not working out all the time.

They’re in the middle of Cinderella, and the Prince and Cinderella are dancing at the ball when the doorbell rings. Pat hears her mother going to answer the door, but mostly ignores it in favor of the movie and her little sister’s commentary in her ear.

However, when Pat hears Sharpy’s voice, talking to her mom about seeing Pat, she stiffens. She really doesn’t want to have to face her teammate right now, especially when she’s still feeling so raw and vulnerable and hopeless.

“Pat!” her mom calls. “Sharpy’s here to see you!”

Pat reaches for the remote and pauses the movie. “Sorry, Jackie, we’ll finish the movie after Sharpy leaves.” Her little sister looks up at her pleadingly. Pat smiles a little and whispers in Jackie’s ear. “I’d rather watch the movie with you, too,” she says. Jackie grins then, and carefully gets up from where she was laying.

“Fine, but I’m taking the popcorn,” she says sassily, and grabs the bowl before walking away.

Sharpy walks in then, and Pat struggles to sit up.

“Hey, Kaner, how you feeling?” Sharpy asks gently, and Pat sighs.

“How do you think I’m feeling?” she snaps, not really sure where the sudden burst of anger is coming from, but not caring enough to restrain it. Sharpy recoils a bit, taken aback by the venom in Pat’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” he says earnestly, and walks over to sit on the floor and look at Pat. “I brought a card, all the guys signed it. And Abby made me help her make some cookies for you.”

“Thanks,” Pat grunts out, looking down at her hands and picking at the fresh paint on her nails.

They sit there in an awkward silence, the most awkward since June. Pat doesn’t really have it in her to make conversation, though, because she doesn’t want to pretend like everything is okay. She appreciates that Sharpy has come to see her, but she knows that he doesn’t really have a reason to care anymore. They won’t ever play together again, because Pat’s out for the rest of the season and Sharpy’s going to be in college next year. Pat would’ve expected Saader or Jonny or Shawsy to come see her, because at least she’s going to play with them next year.

“So,” Sharpy says breaking the tense quiet. “I heard it’s a break. That sucks so hard, Kaner, I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.” Pat feels tears start to well up, threatening to fall down her cheeks. She doesn’t really know why she’s so fucking emotional right now, but she does know that she doesn’t want Sharpy to see it.

“I remember when I was in, like, eighth grade I got a concussion and couldn’t play for like three months. I didn’t know what to do with myself, it was fuckin’ awful.” Pat doesn’t know why Sharpy is still talking, but hearing about his injury isn’t helping her feel better about hers at all. “If there’s anything I can do to help out, let me know.”

A single tear drips down Pat’s face, and she hastily wipes it away.

“Hey, are you okay? I’m sorry if I’m making anything worse; Abby tells me I really suck at being, like, emotional and stuff.” Sharpy’s face is open and genuine, and Pat loses control.

Tears start to run freely down Pat’s face, and all she can see is the big blue cast on her foot when she looks down to avoid Sharpy’s face.

“Why do you even care? I’m new, and I’m a girl, you shouldn’t fucking care!”

Sharpy’s quiet, and Pat looks up at him, the view of his face blurry through her tears. She can see enough, however, to tell that his face is scrunched up, concern written on it clear as day.

“Pat, what the fuck?” he asks, stupefied. “I’m your friend, of course I care!”

“But why?” Pat asks, and her tongue is salty from the tears on her lips.

“Because we’re friends, Pat. Because that’s what friends fucking do. They care.” Sharpy’s voice is edged, but there’s an underlying sadness. Pat isn’t sure why he would be sad.

“You don’t have any reason to care anymore. I know none of you wanted me on the team, I’m not stupid. And you don’t even have to play with me next year, the rest of my life doesn’t affect you.” Pat’s looking up at Sharpy now, trying to not let her crying get in the way of her talking. “You know I won’t be able to play anymore, don’t play dumb. Why are you fucking here?!”

The longer Pat goes on, the more Sharpy’s face crumples. By the time she’s done, he looks ready to cry with her; Pat’s never seen him look so vulnerable.

When Sharpy speaks, it’s quiet and soft and gentle, like he’s talking to a small child who fell and hurt themself. There’s no trace of the big, loud, obnoxious Sharpy, the one who loves pranks and chirping his teammates constantly.

“Pat, I don’t just hang out with you because of hockey. I hang out with you because I like you, because you’re my actual friend,” Sharpy’s brows are drawn together, and the corners of his mouth are turned down. “The whole team loves you; you’re hilarious and fun and can give Tazer shit like no one else. Your wrist shot is lethal and your stickhandling is like art. We need you, Peeks, not just on the ice, but just in the group. You’re important.”

Pat is still crying, eyes closed and head cradled in her hands. Her breath is coming in sharp bursts, and horrible ugly sobs are escaping from her mouth. It’s embarrassing, so, so embarrassing, but she’s processing her friend’s words. She feels the sofa dip and an arm is draped over her shoulders. Sharpy’s voice is suddenly right next to her ear, and Pat can’t breathe.

“We didn’t not want you on the team. We were… unsure. None of us have ever played with a girl before; we just didn’t even know what to expect. We didn’t know if you would be super girly; we didn’t know if you were used to playing with guys. We didn’t know anything about you. A lot of us weren’t good to you at first, because we aren’t good at new things.”

Pat is still sobbing, but Sharpy’s words are helping. She’s starting to see what Sharpy sees, what a lot of the guys probably see. She’s starting to understand, and it’s helping.

After a while, Pat is breathing relatively normally again. The tears have slowed to a stop, and her heart has stopped racing. The sound of Sharpy next to her is helping, and though he hasn’t done much to comfort her, she knows that he’s trying.

She looks up, wipes her face, and sniffles a little bit. “Thank you,” she tells her friend earnestly, because he deserves it. A crying girl is never easy to deal with. “I’m sorry about all that, I’ve been a mess the past couple of days.”

Sharpy gives her a small smile. “I don’t blame you, honestly. But I gotta say, I’ll be warning the guys not to come over and see you unless they want to be cried on.”

Pat laughs at that, though it’s kind of a pathetic one. “Oh God, please don’t. I don’t need anyone to know about this, it’s embarrassing enough as it is.”

Sharpy smiles at her, a big one this time. “Eh, just a little warning. Duncs and Seabs were talking about saying hi, and I’m not sure Duncs could deal with even a quarter of the emotion you just expressed.”

Pat grins, and it feels kinda strange, but in a good way. “Yeah, you might have a point there. Maybe a small warning will save awkwardness in the future.”

Sharpy laughs, but quickly stops. His face changes, and when he speaks next is serious and quiet. “Peeks, I think we should probably talk about what you said there.” Pat’s breath catches in her throat, because she really, really doesn’t want to talk about what she said. She never meant to give away as much as she did. “I didn’t know how much you still cared about the rocky start we had this summer. I didn’t realize how much you cared about that, and I’m sorry.”

Pat heaves out a big breath. “Listen, Sharpy, it’s really not that big of a deal—”

“It really is,” Sharpy interrupts. “I don’t think you really understand what went down this summer, and honestly? I think you make shit up about our team in your mind, and I don’t really understand why.”

Pat opens her mouth to say something, but no words come out, so she shuts it again. “I,” she starts. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t play dumb. I may be relatively oblivious, but I’m aware enough to fucking notice when someone has overwhelming distrust for me, and I saw that just now and I saw that this summer. I don’t know why you fucking think we hate you or something, but we fucking don’t. Just man up, dude, and tell me why the fuck you don’t trust us.” Sharpy doesn’t sound concerned anymore. Instead frustration colors his voice, making Pat aware of exactly how little Sharpy appreciates not being trusted.

“Sharpy…” Pat starts hesitantly, not really even sure what she wants to say. If she’s being completely honest, Pat doesn’t know why she’s so hesitant to trust the River Heights team. Maybe part of it is the move; she’s in a new place, with new people, and she doesn’t trust anything about the situation. But that wouldn’t really explain this most recent freak out, would it? Pat has been here for eight months, she should be used to everything. Why doesn’t she trust Sharpy and Jonny and Duncs and Seabs when she finds it so easy to trust Gags? She and Gags only played together for a year also, though, to be fair, they played with the same club before high school.

“I don’t know why I don’t trust you guys, okay? I just don’t. Maybe it’s about being in a new place, especially since I didn’t want to move here. Maybe it’s because you guys are all super new, and maybe it’s because the coaches obviously fucking hate me. I don’t know.”

Sharpy lets out a long breath, and rubs his temples. “Peeks, I can’t even begin to guess why you’re so distrustful. But you need to fucking work on it, okay? It can’t fucking continue, because it’s super fucking hard to deal with.”

“Sharpy,” Pat cuts in, wanting to make sure he knows about the coaches. “Sharpy, what about the coaching staff? They obviously hate me, and I can’t do anything about that.”

Surprisingly, Sharpy smirks. “Oh, Patty Cakes, don’t you worry about that. The lovely Toews family is looking out for you on that one.” Confusion must be painted over Pat’s face, because Sharpy laughs and wraps his arm around her shoulder roughly, shaking her a bit. “I would tell you to ask him about it, but we know Tazer. He won’t open up and tell you about the massive tantrum he threw.

“Essentially, you were taken off the ice, Tazer almost got in a fucking fight with that fucking huge d-man, continued to play dirty the rest of the game along with scoring some fucking beautiful goals, then got off the ice and told his parents that the coaches intentionally did you dirty. The full force of the Toews family demanded to speak to Coach, Tazer still in full gear by the way, and from what I heard, Tazer vibrated in fury while his beautiful Quebecois mother very calmly told Coach that she would be taking her son to see the administration and tell them what he told her.” Sharpy is grinning, and it honestly looks a little bit menacing. And even though Jonny’s temper tantrum goes against everything Pat ever tells herself about being independent and not needing people to help out, there’s something warm blooming in Pat’s chest at the thought of Jonny being so emotional about her being out.

People on the team care.

“You should’ve lead with that,” she says slyly, grinning up at her friend. He sits back, his eyebrows crinkled together. Pat laughs a little before continuing on to explain. “You should’ve told me that y’all care with that story before anything else.” Sharpy’s smile goes soft again, warmth dancing in his eyes.

“I’ll think about that next time. And honestly, even though Tazer’s reaction was the biggest, none of us were happy. Coach was super pissed about the penalty minutes we managed to rack up in just a single period.” Sharpy smiles sheepishly, looking down at his lap. Pat laughs though, and she understands, at least for the moment, that her team is there for her. She gets it now.

Suddenly, Sharpy jerks. “Oh shit, I need to go,” he says, a little bit of panic creeping into his voice. “We have a team meeting in, like, twenty minutes.” The older boy gets up from the sofa suddenly, jostling Pat. He pats his pockets and looks around the Kane living room while Pat stands up as well.

“Okay then, come mon, I’ll take you to the door. Thanks again for stopping by.” Pat smiles at her friend, and leads the way to the front hallway.

“Be sure to think more about what we spoke about,” Sharpy tells her seriously before he opens up the front door. “I don’t want this to be an issue Tazer has to deal with next year;, he’s fucking terrible at emotions and shit. Think about what we can do to make it better.”

At that, Sharpy rushes through the front door, waving to Pat before climbing in his car and driving away. Pat closes the door, shivering a little bit from the cold. She takes a deep breath and steels herself to talk to Erica, who had doubtless been listening in almost the entire time.

 

It’s third hour the day after her heart to heart with Sharpy, and she and Sammy are struggling down the stairs. Pat’s crutches make it nearly impossible to make it up or down the stairs, and no one has given her an elevator key yet.

The two are giggling, because it really is ridiculous that two high school athletes can’t fucking make it down a staircase. Pat’s leaning on Sammy’s shoulder, eyes closed when a voice comes from behind, startling both girls.

Pat turns around and sees Jonny standing there, his face just as blank as ever besides a slight wrinkling of his eyebrows.

“Hey, Kaner,” he says, monotonous. Usually Pat would be able to read more into her friend’s voice, but not now.

“Hey, Jonny,” she replies, trying to sounds as warm as possible. She doesn’t want there to be any misunderstandings stemming from Pat coming off as cold or unfriendly. “What’s up?”

“Who’s your friend,” Jonny says more than asks, and Pat can only let out a small breath in annoyance. Just because she can’t play now doesn’t mean that Jonny should be cold to her and her friends. Hopefully Jonny will still treat her the same, even if they aren’t really teammates anymore.

“I’m Sammy,” Pat’s friend replies.

“Jonathan Toews,” Jonny says coldly, and Pat wants to fucking hit him, honestly. Could he give a worse impression?

(She still kinda wants to curl up into Jonny though. She wants to be tucked under his arm so everyone can see that she’s his, she wants him to hold her hand and softly kiss her when they have to part to go to different classes. Pat’s heart clenches every time she sees a couple in the halls, jealousy making her chest tighten up and feel cold. Pat won’t get what those couples have, not with the guy she wants to have it with.)

Sammy smiles and replies, “Nice to meet you,” and thank fucking God she has the ability to brush off Jonny’s rude behavior.

“Hey,” Jonny says gruffly, turning his attention to Pat. “Can I talk to you for a bit?” His eyes flick over to Sammy and then back to Pat again. “Alone?”

Pat huffs out a breath, because she really doesn’t want to talk to Jonny about meaningless bullshit concerning her part on the team or whatever. She really doesn’t want to have to talk about hockey at all, because she’s still so fucking raw, which isn’t helped by the dull pain coming from her ankle. But she knows that Jonny will be all butt-hurt if she brushes him off, and a butt- hurt Jonny is something Pat wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

“Sure, yeah,” Pat says to her teammate, and turns to Sammy apologetically. “I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?” Sammy just smiles before turning away, and Pat takes that as a yes.

“You need any help, then, with the stairs?” Jonny asks awkwardly, his cold demeanor suddenly evaporated with the absence of Sammy. He sounds unsure, and the line of his shoulders is tense. His eyebrows are furrowed, and there are dark circles formed underneath his eyes. He looks older somehow, like some heavy weight has fallen on his shoulders since the last time Pat has seen him.

He looks terrible, honestly, and Pat isn’t sure how she didn’t notice that right away, when he was looking down at her from the top of the stairwell. There are big, deep, dark circles under his eyes and his hair looks greasy and unstyled.

But she can’t focus on that now;, she honestly doesn’t have the time or energy to worry over Jonny. It’s not that she doesn’t care;, in fact, Pat cares about her teammate more than would ever be appropriate. The fact is, Pat needs to focus on herself right now. She’s already feeling more down that usual; the urge to stay in bed all day simply because she can’t skate is so fucking strong. She knows that in a month it will be even worse; she’ll be depressed and lazy and unmotivated, too caught up in what she can’t do to focus on having any type of fun. Pat needs to minimize that, because if she gets caught up in the depressed injured athlete cycle, she won’t be able to get out.

Pat knows she’s going to need to focus on getting better, motivate herself with the thoughts of hockey in the future rather than make everything worse with the thoughts of not being able to skate now.

Pat gets caught in the feeling of Jonny’s hand on her hip and his side pressed again hers as he helps her down the stairs, but is quickly snapped out of it once Jonny speaks, his voice still awkward and unsure.

“I wanted, well…” Jonny trails off, but Pat doesn’t jump in. She figures that would only be a good way to get yelled at right now. They’re walking down the halls aimlessly, and honestly Pat hopes they find somewhere to sit soon. The crutches are killing her.

“Listen, Pat, I wanted to talk to you about the coaches.” Jonny stops talking, obviously expecting a response. When he doesn’t get one, he stops walking, and looks at Pat carefully when she stops as well. She must shift uncomfortably, or make some sort of pained look, because Jonny’s face shifts into disbelief. “Oh, Jesus, fucking shit. I totally forgot about your crutches, goddamnit. Um, fuck, let’s find somewhere to sit. Fuck, I’m sorry, Kaner.”

Pat can’t help but laugh fondly, because her friend is so fucking earnest in his apology. She can’t help how much she likes Jonny when he’s soft and caring like this. “Hey, I’ll be fine, but yeah, we should find somewhere to fuckin’ sit.” She grins at her friend, trying to express how much she appreciates his concern. It is only after another minute or so, when Pat’s but is firmly in a chair, that she realizes what Jonny had originally said. She heaves a deep breath, in and out, before looking at her friend and beginning to talk.

“Listen, Jonny, you don’t need to do anything for me with the coaches. This is my battle to fight. I can handle it, and I’ll talk to my parents soon. I’ll be fine, Jonny, I swear.” Pat knows she sounds a little perturbed, and she doesn’t want to make it sound like she doesn’t appreciate her teammates concern. It’s just that, well, she doesn’t really want any help on this. It might be dumb but she just feels the overwhelming need to conquer this issue on her own, with the only outside help coming from her parents and, if need be, the administration.

However, Pat must not get her point across, because Jonny very quickly goes from awkward and fumbling and unsure to frustrated and almost angry.

“Listen, Pat,” he says harshly from across the table that they’d found. The corners of Jonny’s mouth are turned down at the corners, and he’s leaned towards Pat in an almost aggressive manner. Pat leans back instinctively, though she knows Jonny would never ever hurt her.

“I don’t really give a shit about your fucking stupid as shit martyr complex or whatever. We’re fucking team for a reason, you dipshit, and I want you to understand that I’m going to be there for you no matter how little you want the support. Also, fuck you, my mom already is going to send a letter to the coaching staff and the administration, so… yeah. You can’t fucking stop the wave of support coming your way, no matter how hard you fucking try.”

Pat’s not sure what to think about that; she’s a little intimidated, honestly. No one likes being yelled at, and especially not by someone they trust.

“Jonny…” Pat says hesitantly, dragging the name out a little bit. “Jonny, I don’t think you understand. I’m going to talk to my parents about it, and maybe even like write a letter or some shit. I’m fine, I can handle it.”

Jonny looks annoyed beyond belief, and Pat doesn’t really understand what she’s doing to warrant that. “Pat, I don’t think you fucking get it. What you don’t fucking understand is that the team cares about you. We are so fucking upset that you’re out, and we want to fucking do something about the shitty treatment you’ve been getting. It’s not fair.”

Pat opens her mouth to retaliate, but Jonny cuts her off before she can get out a single word.

“Pat, this isn’t about you not being able to do it. In fact, you should abso-fucking-lutely talk to your parents about this bullshit, but we want to fucking support you. We want you to come to practices and tell us what we’re doing wrong and we want you to come to team dinners and games and parties. We want to do something about the shitty coaching, and we want to drive you around when you need a ride. The team loves you, Pat, and we’re gonna fucking support you, so you can shove your independent suffering up your fucking ass.”

And… and maybe Jonny has a point here. Pat remembers what Sharpy told her about the Toews family marching into Coach’s office and threatening to go to the administration, and she remembers the warmth that had bloomed in her chest at the sign of care. Pat thinks this is probably that caring manifesting itself yet again, and once she realizes that, she melts. Any ounce of fight in her body evaporates, and she’s left with that same warm feeling she got when Sharpy told her about what happened after she got hurt, but more. This warmth is intensified, nearly all- encompassing. Pat starts to feel a soft smile spreading across her face, and she hides her face in her arm to hide it.

A second goes by, and Pat looks up at Jonny to make sure she didn’t dream all of this, to make sure she isn’t misunderstanding. He’s looking at her with something in her eyes, something soft and warm and unbearably vulnerable. It’s gone in a second, but not before Pat notices it and tucks it away for further contemplation.

Jonny still looks sincere, though, sincere and a little crazed from trying to get past Pat’s stubbornness.

“Okay,” Pat says simply, and she hopes Jonny understands what she means.

From the grin that spreads across Jonny’s face, it looks like he does. He laughs a little, and when Pat give him a contemplative look, he just shakes his head. “The guys didn’t think I’d be able to convince you. Sharpy told us how you were with him, and they thought for sure I wouldn’t be able to get you to let us help out.”

Pat rolls her eyes exasperatedly and shakes her head, feeling her cheeks warm at the thought of Sharpy telling the team about her breakdown. “You guys are insufferable,” she complains playfully.

“Whatever, Kaner, you wouldn’t know what to do without us.”

And he’s right, absolutely, unequivocally right.

Pat hates it a little.

 

Pat’s laying in bed, unmotivation and despair weighing on her, making it impossible to move or breathe or contemplate a good way out. She lays there and pities herself, allows herself to wallow in misery and hatred for her situation. She’s been doing this every night since her injury. Pat just lays in her bed and stares at the ceiling and lets her thoughts loose, turns through situations where her break becomes worse somehow and she’s never able to skate again, where she’s not allowed to play for River Heights next year, where her family loses interest in her because she’s no longer their little hockey star.

Pat knows that’s all ridiculous, knows the chance of any of those things happening is ridiculous, and still. Still, she can’t help but to think, “maybe.”

She knows her family is becoming concerned about her, too. Pat barely eats. As soon as she gets home from school, she goes to bed and doesn’t leave her room, doesn’t even turn on her lights, until dinner is served. Pat knows she should still be taking care of herself despite her injury, knows that she shouldn’t just be sleeping, that won’t help her get better.

Still though, she reasons, it’s a broken bone. How much can she really do to help the healing process?

Pat is just thinking this when her cell phone starts ringing from her nightstand. She ignores it.

Only a few seconds after it stops ringing, it starts up again, blaring her ringtone, and Pat stuffs her head under her pillow, hoping whoever’s calling will just give up. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

After the fourth call, it’s obvious they haven’t.

Pat reaches over to her nightstand, feeling around for her phone. She figures that if she switches it off, whoever it is will stop bothering her and get the fucking point.

“Fuck,” Pat breathes out once she sees the caller ID. It’s Gags. She knows he won’t just leave her alone, she knows he and Erica are probably talking about how Pat is acting.

“What do you want,” Pat grumbles into the phone as soon as she presses it to her ear.

“Pat,” Gags says seriously. “Erica told me about what happened.”

Pat rolls her eyes: she knew this was Erica’s doing, because she hasn’t breathed a word of her injury to Gags, not even a text or an email. Erica’s obviously worried though. At dinner she’s always looking at Pat as if Pat is a starving puppy, something to pity and worry about. Pat doesn’t need that, though. She wants to take care of herself.

“Gags, I’m fine, despite what Erica may have told you. Seriously, it’s all good.”

“I fucking know that’s not true, don’t fuck with me, Pat. I wasn’t born yesterday. I remember how fucking miserable you were when you missed one playoffs game last year because you were sick, and Erica says it’s way way worse. Which makes sense, you broke your fucking ankle,” Pat sucks in a sharp breath at that. She doesn’t like thinking about her injury like that. “Your season is over, and it’s the postseason, and I don’t blame you for being upset. But you need to fucking eat, Pat, or I’m gonna come up to Winnipeg myself and fucking make you.”

Pat groans in frustration. “Gags, seriously, it’s not that bad. I’m fine.”

“I know you’re lying, Pat,” Gags says, and where before he was harsh and lecturing, now he sounds beaten down, sad almost. “I got a concussion in eighth grade. I was playing triple A bantam, and I got hit super hard. My head got smacked against the boards super hard, and--” Gags’ voice cracks, and he clears his throat. “It was really bad, Pat. I was so fucking miserable, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was so upset because I couldn’t move and I couldn’t skate and I missed being a regular fucking person.”

Pat’s taken aback. She’d never heard that story before, hadn’t know that Gags had gone through something that bad. It makes her pause, makes her think.

“Gags…” she starts, trailing off. Pat doesn’t really know why, but somehow Gags’ story makes her want to be less reticent about her headspace. “I.. I didn’t realize. I… Yeah, that’s kinda where I’m at, I guess. I miss hockey, and I’m antsy as fuck. I just don’t even know what to do without hockey, and I feel like… This is really dumb, but I feel like hockey’s just gonna keep going and I’ll never be able to catch up.”

Gags sighs. “I know how you feel. It’s like you’ll get stuck, like the injury will suck you in and won’t let you escape, even after you’re technically healed.”

“Yes,” Pat agrees, emphatic and so relieved that her friend understands. “Yes, that’s exactly it. And this is my first year here, and I know that Jonny and I could win the province championship, but now I can’t. It makes me want to scream.”

“I know,” Gags says softly. It sounds like someone’s shouting in the background of the other side of the call. “Listen, Pat, I gotta go. But you should talk to your sister, she’s really concerned. And you should talk to your team, they obviously have your back. Email me if you need anything.”

And that’s it. The line clicks, indicating Gags hanging up, and Pat puts her phone on her chest and stares up at the ceiling.

It’s the same thing she was doing before, the same body position as when she was contemplating how fucked her life is with her injury. Now though… Pat is still frustrated, still antsy and wanting to move. But now she knows Gags went through this too. She knows she can make it out.

Pat starts to see hope.

 

Pat’s sitting high up in the stands, watching the guys battle it out against some team from northern Manitoba.

She’s barely paying attention to the game, can’t really let herself get invested in the hockey the way she normally would. It’s been a week now since Tthe Game and Injury, and since she’s been unable to think about or watch hockey.

Pat knows it’s selfish, knows that the best thing for her to do would be to watch and encourage and be a good teammate, but she simply can’t bring herself to do it, not when she can’t be on the ice, too.

Every night, now, Pat lays awake and thinks of skating, thinks about the feeling of pushing herself across the ice with big, powerful strides. She dreams of deking around defensemen, of beautiful passes and scoring and being wrapped up in one of Jonny’s hugs.

She dreams of Jonny.

Pat misses hockey, misses it like she would miss a limb, but she also misses the things that go along with hockey. She misses the team, misses their dumb chirps and the feeling of being with team. She thinks that maybe, maybe if she can work up the ability to watch them skating when she can’t, she’ll start going to practices, just to sit on the bench and be a part of the group.

But Pat misses one teammate in particular, misses his smiles and his scowls and his stupid dumb glares. She misses the constant judgement and the snide comments about what she’s doing wrong, the quick and effortless passes as they work towards an opponent’s net. She misses side hugs and hair ruffles and being towered over, being taken care of at team meals and on the bench and when they’re just standing next to each other at practice.

Pat misses Jonny.

She knows it’s dumb, knows she needs to get the fuck over herself and her stupid crush, but the distance is just making it grow and grow and grow. Pat sits in class and wishes Jonny were there to whisper to; she steps out into the freezing Winnipeg winter and thinks back to the time he lent her his jacket.

So Pat sits there in the upper corners of the rink, half-watching her team play without her, and wishes for hockey.

 

 

Pat storms out to the car, furious at Jonny. He’s so fucking overprotective, and she honestly can’t fucking deal with it. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone watching her back, but most of the time it’s patronizing and rude and fucking annoying as shit.

So what if she almost falls down Sharpy’s front stairs, tripping over her crutches, which she still hasn’t gotten used to after two fucking weeks, but doesn’t because Jonny catches her just in time. That’s literally not the fucking point, and fuck anyone who brings that shit up.

Pat swings the door to Jonny’s car open, wrestles her crutches into the backseat, and slams the door shut. The rattling sound that echoes the slam soothes Pat’s soul a little bit, but not enough that she feels better about Jonny once he climbs into the driver’s seat next to her.

He looks across the center console at Pat, and she stares back at him, a nasty snarl on her face. Pat hopes Jonny is starting to feel bad for being an overbearing asshat.

“Pat,” Jonny says, sounding far too calm and reasonable. “Pat, you shouldn’t be drinking, not in the mental state you’re in. I’m going to take you home.”

“I don’t want to. I’m sixteen, you fucking ass, not fucking three. I can take care of myself, I don’t need a guy to look after me like I’m a fucking child,” Pat spits and turns to face forwards, crossing her arms and resolving to hate Jonny forever.

“Pat…” Jonny cajoles, and Pat wants to fucking hit him. “Pat, I don’t think you can’t take care of yourself. I just think you’re not feeling good, mentally, and I think you want to drink a lot to forget about why you’re sad.”

Pat is furious, she’s so fucking angry. Jonny thinks that he can just swoop in and make Pat leave the party and then drive her home all when he knows exactly why she would want to do something fun like this in the first place.

“Fuck you! You fucking know why I’m upset and why I want to partially forget about that shit and you still want me to not? You’re so fucking awful, why would you fucking do that? I’m miserable, Jonny, it’s fucking awful. I don’t have hockey, and hockey is all the best parts of my life. My dad is frustrated with me, which puts the whole family on edge. I’m antsy and stir crazy. I still have to go to games and watch you guys play, and I get to hear about your awesome post-season and feel useless. Hockey is team and success and fun and fucking you, you massive fucking fucktard. You’re fucking amazing and I miss you because I never get to see you and I fucking hate it!”

The car is quiet then. The light of the street lamp Jonny parked near softly illuminates the inside of the vehicle, and Pat wraps her arms more firmly around her torso, trying to fight off the cold nipping at her. Jonny hasn’t started up the car yet, so there’s no sound of the engine running or the heat working to warm up the car. It takes a moment for Pat to realize what she said. It takes a moment before her slightly tipsy brain catches up, before she realizes what she said.

Pat leans forward in her seat, resting her elbows on her thighs and her forehead in her palms. Suddenly she’s feeling a lot more sober, suddenly more alert and less hazy and loose. She wants to fucking hit herself, because even though she didn’t explicitly tell Jonny how she feels, she did the next best thing. She feels like such a fucking idiot, because there’s no way that Jonny will feel the same way, no way that he would even know how to handle what Pat just told him.

She takes his silence as confirmation of her fears, and suddenly she sits up straight, looking directly forward to avoid eye contact with her friend. Pat doesn’t think Jonny will totally dump her after this, but she knows things will get awkward. She knows that things will be uncomfortable and weird and strange, so they’ll probably drift apart on their own. It’s too bad they’ll be playing together next summer, too, though maybe Pat will be out of shape enough to not be playing on his line, or even his team.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I’ll go ask someone else for a ride. I don’t think I saw Crow drinking.” Pat reaches for the door handle, no idea what to do about her ankle. However, before she can get even one foot out the car door, a hand is on her shoulder, gripping firmly and tugging her back into the passenger seat.

“Pat, what the fuck did you mean by that.” Jonny’s words are a question, but his tone morphs them into a statement. Jonny knows exactly what the fuck she meant; he just wants to verify it.

Pat takes a deep breath. She doesn’t fucking want to do this, not now, not ever. Pat feels her heart rate start to pick up, and her breathing starts to come quicker. Fuck. It’s not surprising that she would start to panic right now, and yet here she is, freezing her ass off in Jonny’s car, being faced with a conversation she had never even imagined she would have. Pat hunches back over in her seat and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to get her mind and heart to stop racing. She needs to be logical about this;, she can’t just be a fucking illogical, emotional girl. She can’t have a fucking panic attack here with Jonny right there watching.

“It was nothing, seriously. Don’t worry about it.” Pat’s voice is muffled, even to her own ears, from having buried her face in her hands.

Jonny’s hand hasn’t moved from her shoulder, but instead of his grip being rough and demanding, it’s now softer and almost comforting. “Hey, Pat, look at me, please.” Jonny’s voice is soft too, changing drastically from his harsh, unwavering tone from before. “Pat, please trust me. I think I know what you meant, but I want to check before I do something embarrassing.”

Pat takes a deep breath and slowly sits up in her seat, turning to look at her friend. The soft light from the street lamp Jonny parked near illuminates one side of his face, but the other is still bathed in shadow. The curves of his lips are just barely visible, and his hair, which doesn’t have horrifying amounts of gel in it today, looks soft to the touch. Jonny’s eyes are fixed on Pat’s, but they’re soft and gentle without even a hint of pressure or demand. Pat looks at Jonny like this, with every inch of him obviously trying to be as gentle and calming as possible, as she just likes him even more. She wants to hold his hand and climb into the backseat, not to have sex, but just to be with him. She’s so fucking gone for him, and she doesn’t know what she’s going to do about it

“Pat, what did you mean?”

Pat supposes she has to tell him now, and if she’s going to tell him, she might as well be dignified about it. So she looks him in the face and summons her strength and courage and all the rest of the sappy bullshit things that make a person strong and brave, and tells him.

“I meant I like you. Like, holy fuck I sound like a fifth- grader, like I like like you. Like I want to kiss you and hold your hand and be your girlfriend and the rest of the sappy ass shit that goes along with it.” Pat holds her eye contact with Jonny, trying to come across as fierce and strong and someone who shouldn’t be fucked with. She looks, waiting for her friend to start laughing, or for his face to harden into something mean and unreachable, and kick her out. She waits for Jonny to tell her she’s stupid, or to tell her off for liking a teammate, or to tell her to not play next year. She waits for what seems like an eternity, longer than any person should have to wait for anything.

But.

But none of those things happen. Jonny looks at her, and the corners of his mouth turn up into a soft grin. Pat shifts in her seat, still waiting for the bad reaction that will never come.

“So does that mean that if I kiss you now, you won’t slap me and then hobble off to get Sharpy to come beat me up and defend your honor?” The warmth in Jonny’s voice is palpable, and it’s the first thing Pat registers. It takes her a second to process, to fully understand what Jonny just offered her. Pat’s jaw drops, and she must look fucking ridiculous, because Jonny laughs at her teasingly.

The laughter snaps her out of her stupid, time wasting trance. “Fuck yes, holy shit,” is all Pat can get out before leaning forward, her hands reaching out towards Jonny.

He gently places his hand on the back of her neck, pulling her forward and kissing her softly. Pat hums a little bit, because fucking finally. She’s been wanting this since Christmas, since Jonny gave her that fucking photo that held far too much meaning and yet just the right amount all at the same time.

Pat rests her hands on his shoulders, and when Jonny tries to break the kiss, she makes a small dissatisfied noise and chases after him, trying to steal another kiss or three. It just feels so good, nothing like those times she made out with guys at parties in Buffalo, and this isn’t even hot or sex-driven like those times were. This is simple, chaste and gentle, only sweet with no real heat beneath it.

“Hey, hey, Pat,” Jonny whispers gently, sitting back in his seat. “Pat, we can’t stay here like this. Making out over a center console isn’t fun for very long.” He smiles at Pat, who’s figured the best way to get Jonny to kiss her again is to pout.

It doesn’t work, however; Jonny just laughs at the pathetic look Pat gets on her face. “Hey, listen. I’m gonna take you home, and we’ll talk about this later. I have practice tomorrow, though, and a shit ton of homework.” Jonny sounds regretful about this, and Pat can’t help but agree. Now that she knows he wants it, too, Pat wants to spend the rest of the weekend curled up with Jonny without having to worry about anything else.

Jonny nods, turning to the steering wheel and starting the car. They pull off of Sharpy’s street, leaving the spot on the curb with the soft street lamp light behind. Pat isn’t sure how the two of them could ever pull this off; their parents and the coaches won’t be happy about teammates dating, and there’s no way the rest of the guys would ever be truly okay with it. But Pat is ready to try, damnit. Jonny is fucking amazing, and she’s ready to try it out.

 

It’s the Monday after Jonny decided to fuck with Pat’s world perception, and she’s walking out of the school doors, caught up in conversation with the kid she sits next to in Bio about that night’s homework.

“Hey, Pat!” someone behind her calls, and Pat turns to see who it is calling after her.

Jonny is rushing towards her, elbowing people out of the way and leaving a trail of disgruntled students in his wake. He looks harried, and Pat smiles at how unsubtle he is. She would expect him to try a little bit, but he still is a teenaged boy.

Pat finishes up her conversation and makes it out of the school before stopping to wait for Jonny.

“What’re you doing?” she asks playfully. “I think everyone in that hallway hates you right now, it’s not a race.” She elbows him in the side lightly and grins up at him.

Jonny’s eyebrows crinkle a little bit in frustration, but Pat knows he’ll be fine and probably just ignore her. “I needed to catch up with you. We don’t have practice today, and I was wondering if you… um…” Jonny’s looking down at his feet now, unsure and nervous and flustered.

Pat waits patiently for him, knowing the older boy will figure out what he wants to say.

“Do you want to go to get something to eat?” and he sounds fucking terrified at the prospect.

“I don’t know, with how scared you sound, I don’t know if I want to go where you’re going,” Pat gently teases, and Jonny almost loosens at the teasing despite the unamused look he gets on his face.

“It’s not funny, Pat, just come and get some fries with me.”

Pat laughs, because it is a little bit funny. “Yeah, okay, that sounds good. I was gonna get a ride home from Sharpy today anyways, and he’ll be cool.”

The ride to the restaurant is quick, and Pat and Jonny banter playfully the whole way there. Pat’s glad they’re still comfortable around each other and that nothing has changed since Saturday night.

Jonny pulls up in front of the McDonalds and Pat laughs.

“Damn, your wallet must be really empty,” she teases, but Jonny doesn’t give her any reaction.

“What the fuck ever Pat, I know you love the fries and soft serve here.”

They walk into the building and order, and it doesn’t take long for them to receive their tray of greasy fast food. Jonny leads the way to a small two-seatedr table in the corner and Pat settles in her chair, suddenly feeling terribly nervous and not really sure why. She knows Jonny, knows him so well despite not knowing him for even a year. But now that he’s kissed her and is taking her out on a date and looking at her from across a table, with only them and the unspoken words between them, she doesn’t quite know what to do.

The anxiety is quietly bubbling in her chest, and an awkward silence settles over the table as the two teammates eat their food. Pat doesn’t know what’s changed since they were standing at the front of the store, waiting for their food, but now Jonny seems nervous, too, unsure of what to do with his hands or body.

After a minute or two, after Pat has gotten started on her food and summons the strength and bravery to bring it up, she looks up at her companion and asks, “Is this a date?”

It comes out way less smoothly than she would have preferred, way more monotone and demanding than she originally intended. But, hey, at least she said something.

Jonny looks up quickly, looking like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. He’s obviously startled and opens his mouth a couple of times without any words coming out of it.

Pat waits, not sure what to do now that she’s ruined the awkward silence for even awkwarder silence. However, Jonny visibly gathers himself, straightening up and putting on a face that is awfully similar to the one he gets just before a game. He looks straight at Pat, his deep brown eyes determined and just a little bit scared.

“If you want it to be,” he states almost defiantly, and Pat can’t help but laugh a little at the serious boy across from her.

Jonny’s eyebrows draw together at her laughter, and he crosses his arms defensively.

“You’re really gonna put this on me?” Pat asks, humor clear in her voice. “That’s not very gentlemanly of you. I’m honestly very disappointed.” Jonny starts to smile back at her, but hides it in his hand, trying to stay serious.

Pat hums thoughtfully, now feeling playful, because it’s pretty damn obvious Jonny wants this to be a date. No matter that he kissed her on Saturday night, or that it was fucking awesome, Pat wanted to make sure he really did want to do… something more with her.

Now she knows.

“I suppose, if you’re going to give me the choice, I’m going to have to say yes, I would like this to be a date. I hope that doesn’t screw up any plans you might’ve had.”

Now Jonny’s whole face is smiling, even if his mouth is still hidden by his hand. He places his hands on the table, fingers laced together, and summons a straight face. “No, I think that’ll work for the time being. I might have to check my schedule later, though.”

Pat can’t help but to wonder then, wonder at how fucking awesome this boy sitting across this shitty, greasy, McDonalds table is. He’s dry and sarcastic and funny, he’s caring and strong and sharp- minded. Even if he puts too much gel in his hair, even if he throws stupid tantrums on the ice sometimes, even if he cares more about hockey than basically anything else.

Pat thinks he’s fucking amazing.

The rest of the meal goes well, and Jonny reaches across the table to hold Pat’s hand towards the end. Pat relishes the feeling more than she probably should.

As they walk out of the restaurant, Pat starts thinking again. When they climb into Jonny’s car, Pat buckles her seatbelt before turning to look at Jonny.

“Hey, so, I think maybe we should talk about whether or not we’re gonna, like, date or something, or if we’re just gonna be like nebulous or some shit.”

Pat rushes the words out, almost like she’s afraid they won’t come out at all if she doesn’t say them right now. She looks down at her lap, kind of scared of what Jonny’s reaction will be. She doesn’t even know how she wants him to answer, to be quite honest.

Suddenly, a hand is on Pat’s wrist.

“Pat, we can do whatever. I’d like to take you on dates at least before we make anything official, but if you don’t want to do that, I’m fine. It’s up to you, I don’t want to pressure you or anything.”

Pat looks up at Jonny’s face and it’s earnest, kind and honest. Pat believes him, believes that he wants to take her to the movies and to lunch and maybe even fishing once it’s warm enough.

“But…” Pat starts tentatively. “But what about hockey?” Jonny looks confused, so Pat continues on to explain. “Like, the coaches probably won’t like it, right? And the guys might think it’s weird, and I know my dad won’t want me to get distracted or whatever.” Jonny isn’t looking less confused and Pat is becoming more and more unsure about what she’s saying. “Right?”

“I honestly don’t know, Pat,” Jonny starts, and Pat deflates a bit. “But I do know that I’ll still like you a whole fuckin’ lot, with or without dating. And if the concern is distraction, I’m sure we can control ourselves enough to not start making out at center ice,” Jonny smirks mischievously. “Duncs and Seabs manage it well enough.”

That startles a laugh out of Pat, but she quickly refocuses on the conversation. “I think, well, I think maybe you’re right. And maybe we can just be subtle about it?”

Jonny smiles at her, and his eyes are warm and caring and the same as they’ve been since December. A small part of Pat’s mind thinks that maybe she’s been missing something for months now, but that part isn’t nearly as important as right now.

“I think that sounds good,” Jonny says, and Pat can suddenly breathe; she didn’t even realize it was difficult until just then. “So… can I take you out for lunch on Thursday? As a date?” Jonny looks hopeful, which is honestly laughable. As if Pat would turn him down.

“Yeah, totally,” Pat grins, and Jonny grins right back.

“Awesome, I’ll meet you in front of the building at the beginning of third hour,” and there. That’s it. Their second date is planned.

The car ride back to Pat’s is comfortably quiet, nothing like the silences earlier. Pat doesn’t know if it’s just her, but knowing more what to expect with Jonny is comforting, it has lifted a weight off her chest that she didn’t even fully realize was there.

Jonny pulls up in front of her house and stops the car, turning to Pat as she unbuckles her seat belt.

“Hey, thanks for coming with me,” he says and Pat smiles at him.

“Thanks for taking me out.”

Pat doesn’t know why she does it, really, but she’s glad she does. It’s just like the stupid commercials on TV, the ones that are over simplified and unrealistic, and yet she does it.

Pat leans across the center console and kisses Jonny, quickly and nervously. She feels like a goddamn middle schooler.

Jonny huffs a bit in surprise, but wraps a hand around Pat’s shoulder and pulls her closer, dragging the kiss out just a little bit longer.

“You have to go,” Jonny whispers against Pat’s lips, and she sighs because she really, really does. The last thing she needs is for her mom to see her kissing Jonny in front of the house, so Pat pulls away slowly.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says regretfully.

“Bye.”

Pat climbs out of the car, grabbing her bag from the backseat. She waves to Jonny as he pulls away before starting up the stairs and hoping none of her sisters saw.

 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Pat giggles, trying to keep her voice quiet as Jonny herds her down the quiet hall. It’s third hour, and Jonny has a mischievous smirk on his face that Pat only sees in glimpses when he looks back to her while they rush down the hall.

Finally Jonny pulls Pat into a staircase, spinning around so he’s leaning against the wall, shrugging off his backpack, and pulling Pat towards him. She grins at him as he rests his hands on her hips and bends his head down to speak softly.

“No one ever uses this staircase, especially during class,” he reassures as he leans in to softly brush his lips across Pat’s.

She huffs out a small breath, leaning in just close enough to meet Jonny’s kiss, humming softly when his hands tighten reflexively on Pat’s hips. She knows that it’s risky to make out at school anyways, what with some teachers being very against all forms of PDA, and she and Jonny are trying to keep their relationship quiet. Being caught making out in a stairwell would most certainly not being keeping the relationship quiet, and the sheer idea of a simple whisper about them being spread throughout the school makes Pat’s chest seize up.

Within seconds, though, Jonny has her pulled up against his chest, his hands resting low on her hips and their lips trading soft kisses. It’s chaste, mostly, nothing too heated considering their surroundings. Pat losses track of time, caught in the feeling of Jonny wrapped around her, the smell and taste and warmth. She thinks she’s maybe smiling softly between kisses.

“How did you know about this spot?” Pat asks quietly, pulling back for a second and looking up at Jonny. When a soft flush spreads over his face, she grins at him playfully, though there’s a small pang of jealousy at the thought of Jonny doing this with other girls.

“Don’t worry about it,” he mumbles, squeezing Pat’s waist reassuringly and leaning back in for another kiss.

“What the fuck?!”

Pat jumps in surprise, panic suddenly flooding her system as she whirls around to face whoever just interrupted her and Jonny.

“Seabs,” Jonny growls, and the captain stares at the two of them, pure shock painted across his face. Of all the people to find them here, of all the people to catch them, it had to be Seabs?

Jonny steps forward, moving so that Pat is slightly behind him. It isn’t until he opens his mouth that she realizes the older boy is protecting her.

“This isn’t Pat’s fault,” Jonny snaps, though there’s desperation tinging the edges of his voice. “You can’t tell Coach, and you can’t tell the guys that this is her fault. If anyone takes the heat, it should be me.”

Seabs only looks more bewildered.

“Seabs, please,” Pat begs. “You can’t tell anyone. I promise I’m not a distraction to the team, it’s just Jonny, I swear. Please don’t think I’m just having sex with everyone on the team, I swear that’s not what’s going on.” She knows she sounds desperate and vulnerable and scared and is hoping that maybe if she injects what she’s feeling into her voice Seabs will understand.

“Seabs, I swear to God, you better not fucking say anything,” Jonny says, and the growl and harshness to his voice is slipping away with every word, desperation taking its place.

Seabs opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it again. A second passes and Pat feels sick to her stomach, countless ways that this could end poorly making her head hurt.

“Guys…” Seabs trails off, and Pat feels paralyzed, stuck in this moment of panic and fear.

“Guys, I don’t understand why you’re so scared,” Seabs says, and he sounds pained. His face is scrunched up in confusion, and there’s something in his eyes that is dark and sad. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t trust me. I’m your friend. Jonny, I’ve known you for forever, how could you think I wouldn’t understand, or at least support you?”

Pat’s captain sounds genuinely hurt, and that takes her off guard. In front of her, Jonny relaxes then tenses again, and she hopes he doesn’t say anything stupid.

“I’m sorry,” Jonny says simply, and the guilt in his voice is nearly tangible. “I-- I saw what happened my freshman year with that JV player and the team manager, and I just… I was scared about how you guys would react.”

Seabs’s face darkens, and Pat opens her mouth to ask about what happened with the team manager, but her captain sees her and shakes his head minutely.

“Jonny, you know how I feel about that. I would never let that happen to either of you.” The defenseman’s voice is deadly serious, leaving no room for doubt of his sincerity.

“Yeah,” Jonny says quietly, turning towards Pat.

“And Pat?” Seabs asks, directing his attention towards her, his eyes locking onto hers intently. “I know it’s just Jonny. I trust you, and I know the rest of the guys will too. But you do need to be careful, you can’t just flaunt this until the end of the season, or maybe the year. Tell the guys you trust not to tell anyone else.”

Pat nods. She knows that if word of her Jonny’s relationship gets to the coaches, shit could get serious. She looked; there’s technically not a rule against teammates dating, but they’ve never needed one before. There’s most certainly a rule against players and team managers dating, and apparently that had been a big thing before.

Seabs sighs, big and deep and exasperated. “Listen, guys, I gotta get back to class. Be careful, and I’m glad you finally fucking figured out you wanted in each other’s pants.” He spins around to go back the way he came, leaving Pat with her mouth wide open, hoping she and Jonny weren’t that obvious with their pining.

 

That afternoon, as Pat is making her way out the front doors after the last bell, someone grabs her by the shoulder.

“I’m glad you two finally figured out your shit,” Sharpy says, the smug smirk Pat would have expected absent from his face, replaced with a genuine smile. “Don’t worry, Jonny told me in physics. I’m happy for you two.” Pat opens her mouth to say… well… she isn’t sure what, but is cut off before a single sound can come out. “I won’t tell anyone; Jonny already told me he’d fuckin’ castrate me if I did. Listen, I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

Sharpy rushes off, leaving Pat standing in the middle of the sidewalk, gaping at him like a freak.

At least she didn’t have to tell him.

 

Pat’s sitting in the bleachers, right up next to the glass, close enough that she can see the frustrated look on Jonny’s face in detail, the lines around his mouth from frowning and the wrinkle that forms between his eyebrows when he furrows them in concentration.

Pat’s stressed, too, leaning forward in her seat, jaw clenched, and chest tight. Her heart is beating fast, her uninjured leg bouncing up and down relentlessly. She’s clenching and unclenching her fists, muttering prayers and reassurances under her breath.

The crowd around her is loud, chants filling the rink. Most are positive, but some are harsh and mean and cutting. It’s all the typical stuff, the high school game chants that proclaim one school’s superiority and the other’s inferiority. Those in River Heights blue are still shouting, still cheering on their team, but there’s an unmistakable tint to their voices. Their cheers are those that encourage seeing it through to the end, of not holding a loss against their hockey team.

Cheers for a losing team.

There’s five minutes left in the third period of the province championship game, and River Heights is down by three points.

Pat can see that it isn’t because they’re tired or not working hard enough: it’s obvious that each of the guys is doing everything they can to pull through, to get this win. They’re skating fast and hitting hard and shooting and shooting and shooting.

But it just isn’t quite good enough.

Pat can see it, she can see that the other team is just that much faster and stronger and more accurate. She can see that their passes connect just that much more, that they make just that much fewer mistakes.

The seconds on the clock tick slowly away, slowly slowly slowly, and then suddenly two minutes have passed. River Heights are no closer to winning, and that three point gap becomes more impossible to close with each passing moment. By then, the other team is just icing the puck, running the clock out.

Pat can see that the guys know they’ve lost. The seconds slowly fall away and they guys are obviously just trying to lose gracefully, just trying to go out with dignity. They’re still trying, still playing hard, but it’s mostly just in an effort to not let the different in points get any larger.

The final horn blows, and Jonny skates past where Pat is sitting on his way back to the bench.

He looks devastated.

 

Pat isn’t sure what to do when Jonny walks out of the locker room doors, the last to make his way out. His face is grim, and an untrained eye would only see anger painting it.

Pat knows ,though, both from spending almost a year now with Jonny and from being in the same position herself. Pat knows that it isn’t actually anger showing in the tense set of his shoulders or his furrowed eyebrows. Sure, there’s some anger in there, and Jonny probably thinks he’s angry. But she knows, okay, she’s lost a big game before.

That’s disappointment and frustration and constant rethinking of everything he could’ve done better. That’s beating himself up and sadness and the loss of hope right before his very eyes. It’s the feeling of letting down his team, of failing when they needed him the most.

Pat knows that, she does. She knows what it’s like to be where Jonny is, and she knows that his mental flagellation is warped because it’s coming from him. Jonny isn’t thinking right, isn’t understanding that it isn’t all his fault. He sees the loss as every time he could have pushed to go faster, shot a little quicker, hit that much harder. Pat knows.

Pat knows, and that’s why she gives Jonny the space he needs. She backs off while Andree and Bryan walk over. Bryan takes Jonny’s bag from him while Andree wraps him in a hug, saying something in his ear too soft for Pat to hear from where she’s standing nearby. She waits for David to give Jonny an awkward hug, and for Jonny to retrieve his bag from his father, kiss his mother on the cheek, and walk out to his car.

Pat starts walking next to him at the rink door, simply walking beside him, not making any conversation. She doesn’t want to push too hard, doesn’t want Jonny to tense up and get defensive, lash out at Pat for being too pushy too fast. Instead she just looks at her friend questioningly, waiting for the nod that tells her she can climb into the passenger seat of his car.

The hour ride to Jonny’s house is silent. Neither of them put on the radio, and Pat doesn’t try to start any small talk. Instead, she reaches across the center console to gently hold Jonny’s hand, pulling it towards her and rubbing little circles on the top of his hand with her thumb, hoping it’s comforting.

When Jonny pulls into his driveway, Pat climbs out first, reaching into the back seat to grab her crutches and then circling around to the driver’s side. Jonny has the door open but is still facing the steering wheel. His head is leaned back against the headrest, his eyes closed, face scrunched up and the corners of his mouth pulled down.

Pat shifts a bit, hoping to get Jonny’s attention.

“Come inside, we can leave your bag out here for now. I’ll make you something to eat and then we can watch a movie or something.” Pat tries to sound as normal as possible, not wanting Jonny to feel coddled or weak.

He looks up at her then, and sure enough his eyes are glassy, but he’s got a small not-quite forced smirk on his lips. “Whatever, if I let you near my stove you’d burn the house down.”

Pat lets out a small huff of laughter, because it’s honestly not far from the truth. Pat reaches out her hand, silently asking Jonny to follow her into the house.

He climbs out of the car and leads the way to his front door, quickly unlocking it and leading them inside wordlessly. Pat knows he’s not going to want to talk about the game or his reaction to the loss, so she’s not going to bring it up. She just wants to be here so Jonny knows she cares, so he isn’t alone to beat himself up about the game.

 

A half an hour later, Pat has Jonny settled on the bed in his spacious basement room, a small mountain of slightly burnt grilled cheese sandwiches on a plate on his lap that is quickly being devoured despite the boy’s various claims that he wasn’t hungry enough to eat the whole plate.

Pat has snatched one of the sandwiches and is perusing the small collection of VHS tapes Jonny has in the shelf next to his TV that she is most certainly not jealous of. When she finds a copy of Aladdin on the shelf she smirks to herself, knowing her boyfriend will whine and complain about having to watch a Disney movie.

After asking Jonny how to turn on the TV and VHS player and fiddling with it a bit, she pops in the movie and walks back to the bed, remote in hand and switching off the overhead light on her way.

As expected, Jonny grunts when the title screen comes up, looking over at Pat with a judgmental and decidedly not-happy look on his face. “Don’t even start,” she tells him, glaring slightly. “I get to pick, I’m injured.” The boy glares at her and then the cast still on her ankle before sighing loudly and shoving another bite of grilled cheese into his mouth resignedly. Pat grins and starts up the movie, leaning back against the headboard and Jonny’s shoulder.

Fifteen minutes in, Jonny finishes his food and slides down the bed until he’s laying down, his head and shoulders propped up by a pillow. He tugs at the hem of her sweatshirt, the same one Sharpy got her for Secret Santa only three months ago. Pat looks down at Jonny, his face bathed in shadows but not so hidden that she can’t see the sad look on his face. He looks more open now, more vulnerable than she’s ever seen him in public.

“Hey,” she whispers, not wanting to talk over the movie too much. “You good?”

Jonny says nothing, just tugs at the hem of her sweatshirt again and jerking his head. It takes Pat a second to figure out what he wants, but finally she catches on and smiles softly.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” she say softly as she slides down the bed, wrapping one arm around Jonny’s torso and resting her head on his shoulder. Jonny places a tentative hand on her waist, pulling Pat closer and sticking his head into her hair. He takes a couple deep breaths and Pat traces small shapes on Jonny’s side, trying her best to be comforting. After another five minutes or so, she can feel Jonny loosen up. She hadn’t even realized how tense he was, but she’s glad he’s slowly relaxing.

They lay like that for a while, and the movie is almost over when Pat hears the front door open and close and the commotion of Jonny’s family coming back in. There’s a sound of footsteps coming down the stairs and Pat starts to sit up to talk to whoever is coming down.

Andree pokes her head in the door, and smiles when she sees the two teenagers on the bed. “Pat, I called your mother. She said you could stay until eleven, and it’s almost ten,” Pat nods, and Andree then switches her attention to her son, her voice becoming more firm and her eyes narrowing. “And you behave yourself, don’t do anything you know you shouldn’t.”

Jonny nods in acknowledgment, and Andree turns and heads up the stairs, leaving the door to Jonny’s room wide open.

“You want me to put in another movie?” Pat asks before lying back down. Jonny grunts unhelpfully so she starts to get up to pick another movie, but Jonny rolls over and grabs onto Pat’s hips, pulling her back down next to him.

“No,” he mumbles into the top of Pat’s head. “You’re supposed to be here to be with me.” Pat smiles. She’s never seen Jonny like this before, but… it’s not bad. He seems looser and he certainly isn’t as serious or distant as he is most of the time.

“Okay, okay,” Pat says softly. “Let me lie back down, and then I promise I won’t get up.”

After rearranging, the two just lay there quietly, not even bothering to talk but simply enjoying each other’s company. After a while, time starts to drift. Pat is sure she’s falling asleep and she’d be shocked if Jonny wasn’t drifting off as well, if he isn’t totally asleep already. It’s comfortable, more comfortable than Pat has been in a while, and she forgets about the game and her ankle and hockey.

The two are startled out of their nap when Jonny’s dad calls down the stairs, letting them know Pat’s mom should be there soon. Jonny groans and Pat buries her head in her boyfriend’s shoulder, beyond unhappy at the thought of having to get up. Jonny softly runs his fingers through Pat’s hair and she looks up at him, probably with a disgustingly sappy look on her face. Thankfully, Jonny isn’t much better.

“You feeling better?”

Jonny smiles at Pat and shift a little, just enough so he can comfortably lean down and kiss her softly. Pat closes her eyes and hums just as Jonny is pulling back.

“Thank you,” he whispers, only loud enough that Pat can hear him, her forehead pressed against his. Pat leans in again, pressing their lips together softly.

They trade kisses until another call comes down the stairs, this one informing them that Pat’s mother has arrived.

The two hesitantly pull apart, whispering half baked plans about the next week to each other.

Pat stands up from Jonny’s bed and walks towards the staircase, towards her mother and her family, and away from the quiet moment in time she and Jonny had just occupied. She walks up in a daze, and barely says anything to her mom.

She walks up to her room and flops down onto her bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

 

It’s graduation day, and everyone is emotional. The whole varsity team came to see Sharpy and Duncs and Seabs and Ladder and Crow walk at their graduation, to see them all get their certificates and throw their caps in the air and move on to the next chapter of their lives.

After the ceremony was done, the team stood in a clump, not sure what to do with themselves as their friends were being fawned over by their families. Pat was the first to break through the crowd of aunts and uncles surrounding Sharpy, all of them as unfairly attractive as her friend, and wrap him up in a hug.

Sharpy laughs and reciprocates the hug, holding Pat tight and then letting her go after a couple of seconds.

“We’re gonna miss you,” she says, meaning it fully. Sharpy was the one who brought her into the team, the one who fought past her harsh exterior and made her become friends with the group. Pat appreciates Sharpy’s friendship more than she can really express, and there’s going to be a hole in the team next year without him.

Sharpy’s face softens at her words. “I’ll miss you, too,” he says, and it sounds genuine and real. “And you’re gonna fuckin’ tear it up next year. You’re gonna be amazing.” He grins at her, and Pat grins back. She knows know, despite all the fears and doubts that had plagued her all year, that Sharpy really means it. She knows that all the guys want her there, she knows that she’s a part of the team.

Pat gets pushed out by Abby just then, the other girl rushing in to embrace her boyfriend in a huge hug. Pat turns away when Sharpy holds her close, wanting to give the two a moment. Just then Seabs pulls her in for a quick side hug.

“We’re glad you joined us this year,” he says, and Pat smiles up at him.

“Thanks for being such a great captain,” she replies just as Duncs sidles up to them.

“Good luck with Tazer next year,” Duncs says, and Pat rolls her eyes. She and Jonny are keeping their relationship on the down low for now, but she should’ve known Seabs would say something to Duncs.

“I’ll try my best to keep him under control,” Pat says playfully, and Seabs scoffs.

“Oh, whatever, Kaner,” Jonny says dismissively as he comes up behind her, wrapping his arm around her waist. “You’re the one who’s gonna need to be kept under control.” Pat grins up at her boyfriend, reveling in the arm around her waist and the closeness and ignores his chirp. Even though they’ve essentially been dating since March, she still loves being so close to Jonny.

Seabs smiles at them fondly, and Pat is glad that her team, even if some of them aren’t actually team anymore, support her and Jonny.

Just then, the quiet moment she and Jonny had is broken by the squeal that comes from Sharpy’s direction, and the yelp that follows soon after.

“You bastard!” Abby shouts. “I asked you if they were together and you said no!”

Pat looks over at the couple to see a furious looking redhead and Sharpy looking cowed and rather pathetic. “Pat told me not to tell anyone! And I didn’t want Jonny to kick my ass!”

Pat giggles a little and vows to go over and apologize to Abby later. She needs to keep her only other female hockey ally somehow, even if she’s graduating.

 

The rest of the day is comfortable and easy. Everyone splits up for lunch, Sharpy and Abby disappearing and Seabs and Duncs going out with their families to eat. Pat’s family doesn’t have any plans, so Jonny takes her along with his family and she figures this is when she’s actually meeting the family officially, in a girlfriend setting.

They hold hands under the table, leaning into each other in a probably obnoxious way as Jonny’s family asks her gentle questions, making sure she never feels overwhelmed.

Pat doesn’t really care though. She adores Jonny, has for a long time now. She’s just glad she gets to spend so much time with him like this.

When they’re done eating, the two wander outside to sit on the curb outside the restaurant, despite both still being in their nice clothes.

Pat leans against Jonny’s shoulder and he wraps his arm around hers. The warm afternoon sun is shining down onto the two, warming them. Pat can feel the scratchy concrete through the delicate material of her dress and she knows she’ll be getting a lecture from her parents later about treating her nice things with more respect. Pat thinks it’s nice, though, the contrast between the warm sun and the cool concrete, the soft comfortable feeling of leaning against Jonny and the rough surface they’re sitting on.

Pat wishes she could dwell in this moment for hours. She feels safe and content.

“Thank you,” she says softly, and Jonny shift s bit to look Pat in the eyes.

“What for?”

“For helping me through this year,” Pat says, her voice staying low and soft and genuine. “For helping me settle in and for helping me feel safe here.”

Jonny breathes in quickly, opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, but shuts it again.

“You’re welcome,” he breathes out, and Pat smiles against his side.

Pat’s glad she’s here. She’s so, so glad to be here.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope y'all enjoyed reading about Pat as much as I enjoyed writing about her.
> 
> I’m on Tumblr at [booktubelover](http://booktubelover.tumblr.com/). Don’t be shy :-)
> 
> Of course, don’t forget to give sasha_annes love for her awesome [mix and art](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041925). You can find her on Tumblr at [sashaannes](https://sashaannes.tumblr.com/).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [i know you are but what am i (Fanmix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041925) by [sasha_annes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_annes/pseuds/sasha_annes)




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